Lately, my omnipresent sweet tooth has morphed into a raging... salt tooth?
I've had OOC cravings for cheese and salt for a few weeks now. I've always been a chips and queso kind of girl, but as you can see by the heavy skew on my reci-page- I love me some chocolatey, peanut buttery desserts.
What does it mean? Well, barring adrenal insufficiency (and I'd have some pretty unpleasant symptoms if that was the case), it could either mean my appetite is just swinging this way for awhile, I'm stress eating salty foods as comfort foods, or I'm--argghhh--dehydrated. I've seriously upped my water intake in the past few days to try and fight off my urge to run to the vending machine for Doritos. The ridiculous thing is that the hospital always has a humungo stock of saltine crackers on hand in the pantries. It really shouldn't be a big deal, but I have an absurd love of saltines and stockpile them by the handful during the day.
Sound familiar? It's the candy bowl all over again!
I'm not the type to add salt to food or drench things in cheese, because I know salt can cause some pretty bad side effects- the most worrisome being hypertension (High blood pressure). So far I've tried (pretty bland) Kashi crackers, 50% less salt peanuts, and cottage cheese to quell my sodium frenzy. No dice.
It's time to turn this craving around, and healthify the cracker before someone gets hurt.
"Cheesy" Chickpea Dough Bites Crackers
Decently "salty," "cheesy," and healthy?? See ya later salt tooth.
Starring protein packed chickpea flour and nutritional yeast.
Recipe based on Veg Web Vegan Cheese Crackers
Ingredients:
Dry:
1 cup chickpea flour
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
3/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup + 2 TBSP Nutritional Yeast
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
pinch thyme
pinch chili powder
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp parmesan herb seasoning
2 TBSP ground flaxseed
Wet
1/2 cup ice cold water
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup chilled canola oil
sea salt for garnish
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Pour dry ingredients into a large bowl. Mix thoroughly.
3. Mix ice water, apple cider vinegar, and lemon juice in a small bowl.
4. Pour canola oil into dry mixture and mix with hands until crumbly.
5. Drizzle in water/vinegar/lemon mix and continue to mix w/ hands until dough/batter forms (feel free to add a little water if needed- I didn't need it). Form a large dough ball.
6. Refrigerate dough for 10-15 mins.
7. Remove dough from fridge, roll out onto a greased baking sheet until thin (thinner is crispier, thicker is doughier).
8. Cut dough into cracker shapes using a pizza cutter, cookie cutters, or a knife.
9. Spray the tops of crackers with veggie spray/canola oil spray, then sprinkle w/ sea salt.
10. Bake at 375F for 10-12 minutes until crispy and slightly browned.
No matter what I do it seems that I can never spread out crackers thin enough to be super crispy. Remember my Graham Cracker Rounds? These "crackers" were thicker and a little doughier, but nonetheless perfectly cheesy and salty, and packed with nutrients like protein, B12, and omega 3s from the flaxseed! I will be packing these w/ lunch in hopes to prophylactically attack my afternoon salt binge head on. I sprinkled the sad, broken crackers on my broccoli/soup combo today:
Hey, I never said everything I eat looks good. Everything looks the same to my tummy ;-)
On another note- thanks Meg O and Leanne for your suggestion about fashion posts. It's no secret that I love shopping for clothes and shoes. My goal is to be a super cute, well dressed doctor! Can't wait until I have an actual salary so I can loosen up a little on bargain hunting :-P. When I have a little time, I think I may do a "fashion/shopping" page. Here's a preview of my work "uniform."
Danskos/Sanitas (Danskos in black, Sanitas in Blue and Gold)
Express tank tops
Express sweaters
Belt around the waist
Boots
And when the weather's nice...
Dresses!
Stay tuned...