Spicy Vegetable Crackers

 

Wonderful crackers for grown ups, that have some zing to them. As Emeral always tells you to take it up a notch and these crackers are up a couple of notches. They are perfect for a grown up snack or fall football tailgate party. You can make them up ahead a few days and seal them up into a container. Of coarse they are easy to make and low cost, also only 10 to 15 calories a cracker. To make these you will have to add a box of Lipton Vegetable soup and parchment paper to your grocery list . So lets get started with this fun baking project.

• Servings: 72 servings
• Time: 15 minutes
• Difficulty: easy
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Spicy Vegetable Crackers

• 1 package dry vegetable soup (Lipton)
• 1 teaspoon red crushed pepper flakes
• 1 ½ cups all purpose flour
• ½ cup whole wheat flour
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• ½ teaspoon ground red pepper (optional)
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ cup shortening
• ½ cup warm water
• Coarse salt for tops of the crackers

Mix in food processor using blade by starting with dry ingredients. Pulse a few times to get all the dry ingredients blended. It also helps to chop up the dry soup into smaller pieces. You can also mix this by hand as if you were making pie dough. Add shortening and give a few pulses until the dough looks like sand. Then add the water slowly through the shoot as you pulse the processor until it forms a ball. It is the same technique that you use to make pie dough in the food processor.

Divide the dough into 2 balls. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes.  This will soften the dry soup vegetables and develop the gluten for easy rolling.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. If you don’t have 2 silpats for your cookie sheets you can cut parchment paper to fit the inside of 2 cookie sheets.

Remove the parchment paper or silpat from cookie sheet to roll the dough out on it. You will be rolling one of the dough balls very thin in the shape of a rectangle on the parchment paper that you will later slip the whole thing back on to the cookie sheet to bake. Try to make the dough as squared up as possible. You will be cutting the crackers with a pizza cutter or a pastry wheel. If you don’t have either a knife will work only be careful not to cut through the paper. Cut the crackers about 1 ½ inch squares in a grid. Sprinkle with some coarse salt and prick the tops of each cracker with a fork 3 times. Now slip the paper or silpat back in to the cookie sheet. Repeat the same way for the next ball of dough.

Bake both trays at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

The crackers will separate and shrink a little while baking. Cool and store in an airtight container.

This is a inexpensive fun recipe to add to a low budget meal of tuna salad.  You can always leave out the pepper so children can enjoy them.  A 1/2 teaspoon of chicken-flavored bouillon can be added in the place of red pepper for a mild chicken flavored cracker.  Also this makes a nice gift from your kitchen for someone who can’t have cookies over the holidays.