(Flourless) Rosemary Garlic Crackers

These crackers might be one of my favorite things that I've ever made. A good cracker is hard to find (when you don't eat gluten, dairy or sugar).

This past weekend, my friend Christa came over to eat lunch and hang out. We threw all of the veggies that we each had on the table and combined them to make one beautiful salad. Here's a question that came up during one of our conversations: Is it really necessary to peel carrots? If they're washed, why do we have to peel them? Feel free to shed light on this if you know the answer. If no one knows the answer, then I vote to start eating the whole carrot. Who's with me?

After contemplating carrots, Christa and I moved on to more important subjects like relationships, herb gardening and Tae Bo. You know, the usual.

On top of the salad, we drizzled my favorite go-to dressing:

Garlic Ginger Dressing
2 Tbsp Braggs Liquid Aminos
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice
One garlic clove, crushed
One small chunk of fresh ginger, chopped

Shake together, let it sit for a little while so all the flavors mix. Makes 1-2 servings.

After lunch, I told Christa she was welcome to stick around to personally witness the "Untamed Kitchen" in action. I've really been in experimenting mode recently, and I've had a few recipes floating around in my head that I wanted to try. The first was to make crackers out of nuts and seeds. A long time ago I saw this recipe that I'd been wanting to try, so I decided to base my experiment on it.

It was another one of those times that I became giddy like a little girl as I saw that my experiment was working out. The house smelled amazing as they baked and they tasted even better. It's tough to beat the rosemary/garlic/olive oil combo. There were a couple other gluten-eaters at my house that day besides Christa, and everyone was a fan of these crackers.

I stored them in a ziplock in the pantry for a few days and they stayed crispy until the end. They're definitely heartier than store-bought crackers, so they can almost become a meal in themselves--they're really filling. Here's how you make them:

Garlic Rosemary Crackers
1 cup raw almonds
1/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
2 Tbsp flax seeds (I used flax seed meal)
1-2 Tbsp fresh rosemary
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp sea salt (or more to taste)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 egg, beaten


Put everything except the oil and egg into your food processor and blend until it becomes a fine texture. Mix the oil and egg in a separate bowl, then add to food processor and mix together (my food processor has a "Dough" button that I used, but if it becomes to thick, you can remove it and mix it with a spoon). Next, roll the dough our between two pieces of parchment paper until it's about 1/8 of an inch thick. Lightly coat a pan with oil and bake at 300F for 35-40 minutes or until edges brown and center is crispy. Break into cracker-sized pieces.

You can also cut the dough before you bake it and make the crackers a uniform shape. I'm too lazy untamed to have square crackers though.

Happy Friday!

Baked Tilapia with Fresh Herbs

As I mentioned in my last post, I went to the beach with friends over Memorial Day weekend. I love being close to the water and eating fresh seafood. We ate fish tacos, blackened fish, grilled shrimp, boiled shrimp and scallops. There's nothing like eating seafood while listening to the waves hit the shore. You'd think that after a weekend of the fresh stuff, I'd be good for a little while, but this past week back in Nashville, I still wanted fish, so I baked some tilapia I had in the freezer. Then I filled my kitchen sink with water, pointed a fan on it and closed my eyes while I ate. (I didn't really do that.)

  

I like fish. I usually eat it once a week. When I was little, I remember watching my uncles go fishing. I tried it with them one time and I thought it was so boring. I was way too impatient to sit there and wait for something to bite. Now days I think I'd appreciate the peace and calm in the waiting. I've also always thought I'd love to fly fish. I have relatives in Montana--that's where my mom's family is from--so one of these days I will head back to the homestead and learn to cast a fly. And I will catch trout. And I will cook it over a campfire. Trout cooked over an open fire sounds pretty amazing. 

That actually reminds me of the summer that I lived on Mt. Rainier, and my friends and I took a trip to the Olympic Coast. We camped on the beach and caught live dungeness crabs with our bare hands straight from the ocean. Then we boiled them over a fire that we also made with our bare hands. By "we" I mean the guys I was with, but I was there and it was still one of the most incredible meals I've ever eaten...

Back to the fish. Even if you don't look like Brad Pitt in "A River Runs Through It" or you're currently landlocked like me, you too can make and eat delicious fish--without the hassle or mess of putting a worm on a hook or starting a fire with two sticks.

Having some fresh herbs handy is helpful. Under the close instruction of a gardener friend, I finally planted my first herb garden. So even though my fish wasn't fresh, my herbs were. I still have some herbs that I want to add, but this is a good start! The thymeing of it was just perfect for this recipe. (SORRY! That was a little too cheesy, even for this blog.)

Here's what I did: I thawed the tilapia fillets and poured grapeseed oil over them. Then I sprinkled sea salt on top and added a generous amount of basil (I still don't have fresh basil, so I used dried) and fresh rosemary and thyme. I baked them at 425F for 6 minutes then flipped the fillets and baked for another 6 minutes (bake for less time after you flip if the fillets are thin).

Neither the herbs nor the fish is too overpowering in this dish. Tilapia has a mild flavor, so herbs generally used in Italian cooking go well with it. Give it a try and let me know how you like it. I'm thinking that I probably need to do some more research on pairing fish and Italian herbs. 

Anyone want to finance a trip to the Italian coast? It would be in the name of scientific research, of course: the effects of herbs on local marine life inside my stomach. Very important stuff people.