Well hey now and happy Monday. A special ‘hey now’ to the 70+ peeps who are going Low Glycemic Eating with me this week. How did your breakfast go? My change from oatmeal was delightful (check me on twitter for live coaching all day!).
Though I will be addressing many issues pertaining to low glycemic eating and will finally tackle the old artificial sweetener is poison issue, and the white food devils, I am also keeping the recipes coming and this low glycemic cracker recipe is my absolute favourite. It is sweet, salty, crispy and amazing. I feel like it is as if a graham cracker met up with a vegetable thin, made friends with some walnuts, made a little love in the kitchen and spawned this cracker.
Crackers are one of those craving foods. They are crispy, they are salty, they work wonders as serving vessel for our fave spreadable and most are filled with crap. Check the ingredient label of your everyday supermarket type cracker and you are likely to find things like hydrogenated and/or partially hydrogenated oils, shortening and oodles caboodles of the big bad kind of salt.
As I had a full weekend of cooking, I am keeping this one short and going straight to el recipado. Give these goodies a go. There is something so impressive about serving someone, especially yourself, crackers that you made from scratch. I think home made crackers are up there with making your own ketchup and sauerkraut- like it’s so 1825-chic.
It’s not too late to join the low glycemic eating fun. Get your tutorial and hop on the “I wanna feel amazing” train!
Walnut Crackers
Recommended Equipment: food processor
1 cup almond meal (grind almonds in food processor)
1 cup gluten-free flour of choice (keep it super low glycemic and use a bean flour!)
1 tsp celtic sea salt
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1 egg whisked (or use egg replacement outlined below)
2 tbs olive oil
- Preheat oven to 350
- Stir together almond flour, salt, walnuts, eggs and oil until well blended
- Line baking sheets with parchment paper
- Place one half of the dough in the center of each lined sheet
- Cut another piece of parchment paper and place it over the dough
- Roll dough out between the two pieces of parchment paper, until it is the desired thickness (thin is better for crispy crackers, keep it thicker for flat bread style)
- Cut the dough with a knife or pizza cutter into 2 inch squares
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden
How to replace eggs using flax seed meal?
For each egg to be replaced, blend in a blender/food processor 1 tablespoon flax seed with 1/4 water until the mixture is thick and creamy. You may also wish to add a little arrowroot or tapioca starch- just a tsp or two.
I went with the green smoothie this morning for breakfast – as soon as the kale came out of the fridge, my partner knew it was smoothie time (just for me though, he’s still not on the green smoothie wagon).
I love these crackers! I eat them all by themselves they’re so good…
Love walnuts and crackers, so I know I’d love this fusion!
Thanks for another cracker recipe. I am still struggling with getting them to stick better but I will get there!
These look great and I JUST happent to have garbanzo flour, and millet flour and coconut flour….CRACKERS….now that’s a good thing to make with those flours!
Breakfast I haven’t had yet (it’s only 8 am and I don’t get hungry till about 9)
but I have brought with me today your Almond Sunflower Cereal. (it’s day one right?)
I am trying to follow your schedule as closely as poss.
I don’t have a food processor – is there another way to get almond meal? I have a mortar and pestle, but I’m afraid I’m going to be grinding almonds forever! These look great.
These look divine! Think Coconut flour would work? I have blanched almond flour too (and a zillion other gf flours, but they would be high gi). I had eggs for breakfast, which is standard at our house on Monday mornings. So looking forward to this 5 days of eating low!!!
My 4 yo son has sensitivities to preservatives and colors in foods and there is only like 2 kinds of crackers he can eat without hanging from the chandelier 3 minutes later. Thanks for the recipe, I’ll be sure to try them, he loves crackers!!!
Thanks for all your inspiring posts by the way. I really need to get back to eating/making food from scratch, for our health’s sake, and for my sanity… my son has been going “adhd-like” on me lately and I know it’s because of the food. So I’m going to read your posts as far back as I can to reinspire myself to do this for all of us. Thanks again for such a great blog!
Meghan…any idea where young coconut meat falls in the index?
I can’t find it…just curious if it was high or low.
Day one is going very well. I had to make some tweaks to your menu (had lentil soup for lunch and having a salad for dinner) but all good.
Thanks
hi,
how fortunate that my husband just started low glycemic eating! You have great ideas and recipes (of course, or why would I be here?)
Where is the almond sunflower cereal recipe?
Thanks,
Renee
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I just made these! They turned out great. Hope you don’t mind I posted photos and the recipe. http://randomteaspoon.blogspot.com/2010/04/gluten-free-low-glycemic-crackers.html
I will need to address this not hungry in the morning thing- that is a total adrenaline/cortisol thing.
To get them to stick, try adding a little arrowroot starch and water and get right in there with your hands to smush it all in!
You can buy almond meal already ground- just more expensive, so if you plan on using it often, might be worth it to invest in a $20 coffee grinder to grind the almonds… or put them in a bag and drive over them with your car- that might work
I would try an extra egg if using coconut flour, or additional flax/water to make sure it will stick.
I think it’s amazing that you have recognized the connection!
Stephanie, I can so relate to you! My middle son has had all sorts of issues and the problems stem from the foods and chemicals in them — have you done the Feingold program? He’s 9 now and doing sooo much better. Good luck to you
Thanks Jennifer
I’ve never heard of that program though, is it like an elimination diet? Going to google it right now, i’m curious to know what it is.
Yes Stephanie. You eliminate all foods with dyes and preservatives PLUS all foods with naturally occuring salicylates (apples, almonds, oranges, berries, tomatoes, peppers, etc.). On stage 2, you can bring back in a salicylate food one at a time to see if there is a reaction. I’m sure you’ve found the website by now, but it’s http://www.feingold.org. You can purchase the kit, which gives you a food booklet of things they have investigated to find out what is in the food (if it’s okay for stage 1 or stage 2), and a guide for how to do the program. My son does not eat ANYTHING unless it comes from home (when he’s at school or scouts or birthday parties). Good luck in your quest for your son. I’m so happy if I can help other people because we went through some tough times when he was little.
Thank you for the link Jennifer, I had totally forgot to look into it. I was not aware that things like apples or berries could make kids react that way. I knew about oranges, gluten, dyes and such, but I would not have guessed about the others you mentioned, and it never came up in my internet reaserches. Going to check out the link right now. Thanks again, I really appreciate it!
I am guessing it probably rather low thank to all the goodness fats in it. Coconut water is a whole other story.
The Almond Sunflower recipe is part of the 5 Days Low Glycemic Eating tutorial.
Wait a second… I went to the Feingold website and the first thing I saw was a goodie basket giveaway full of crappola.
yes, I know! Frustrating, isn’t it?!! The point is that some children’s behavior are affected by salicylates (and most all by dyes and preservatives)… but most of the families on Feingold still eat the S.A.D. which we all know is not healthy. I used the program for the information, not for what food that passes the Feingold requirement is okay for my child to eat. Make sense??
And it’s not a giveaway, but a fundraiser — if you donate a certain amount, you can get the basket of crappola. This organization does some good work, but they don’t “get” the whole picture of health — as evidenced by all the candy.
Crohn’s and colitis foundtation have a burger/hot dog and chips fundraiser. Ugh. When I put together a heal the world program, I won’t have fundraisers where I sell food that causes the problem of which I am trying to heal from. Kind of reminds me of how pharmacies sell all the junk food that people pick up prescriptions to help them deal with the results of eating the junk food. A little self-sustaining economy.