All About Food

Cooking from scratch has been both challenging and rewarding...not to mention time consuming.  With my mom's special diet of low/no cholesterol, I've been making her soy milk.  A couple days ago I tried making her some rice milk, which I found to be so much easier than soy, and she loved it.  I also made her some cashew cheese.

This week I've been experimenting with homemade Chevre from the raw goat milk I get.  The recipe I used is from Fiasco Farm and it turned out great for my first try at cheese.  But what's cheese without crackers!  This rosemary cracker recipe from Home Cooking In Montana was the perfect compliment.  I substituted homemade leaf lard for the oil, which resulted in a light, flaky, crisp cracker.  Ah, the adventures of making your own lard...that is for another post.

So I was on a roll. The crackers came out great and since I've been craving, missing those little sesame stick snacks decided to try making my own.  I took the same Rosemary cracker recipe, omitted the rosemary, and substituted 1/2 cup of organic whole wheat flour for the white flour.  Added 4 tablespoons of sesame seeds and blended everything in a food processor, except the water.  Transferred the mixture to a bowl, and stirred in two more tablespoons of sesame seeds. The extra sesame seeds were added because I suddenly realized I pulverized the first four tablespoons in the processor.  To the water I removed one tablespoon of water and replaced it with one tablespoon of organic, non-GMO soy sauce.  I divided the dough into two balls. The first was rolled out, cut and sprinkled with salt.  The second ball of dough was rolled thin, brushed with soy sauce and sprinkled with a chili, salt and sugar mix.  Then cut into bite size snacks.

After baking until lightly browned, I transferred them to a paper towel to cool.  Broke them up and placed in an air tight container.  While they didn't have quite the spicy "kick" I was looking for, and I think a bit more soy sauce was needed, they still had a great sesame flavor and crunch.

In the past I've been a bit frustrated trying to roll out the cracker dough thin enough. I tried using some thin acrylic sheets wrapped in foil as a guide, but the rolling pin was too short. With my aquariums I always have extra PVC pipe and parts in stock.  I found a 1/2" x 24" piece of unused PVC, which has now been added to my list of kitchen tools as a rolling pin.