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Oat and Walnut crackers

Originally uploaded by Bnita-Denise.

Crackers are my obession right now. Honestly! I make crackers at least 2-3 times a week now. It all started innocently enough when I was in the grocery store satisfying a craving for fresh vegetables. I was all done with my purchases, and ready to go, when I glanced at what the person behind me was buying. My eyes fell upon a package of Margaret’s Artisinal Flatbread. I had an immediate craving for it — it made no sense, but I had to buy some too.

So I got the Chive and Garlic, and opened it and…it was okay. A little stale, and didn’t have the crispness that I had a hankering for. Not to mention that the package was $4.99!!!! I didn’t get the craving satisfied, and I was *not* about to pay another five bucks for something that I am sure I could make myself. So I did a little research on the web to see what I could find on flatbreads and crackers.

Here’s what I found: “flatbread” still seems to mean a flat yeasted bread. “Cracker” seems to mean a thin, crisp “quick” bread. I found a couple of recipes that I thought would make what I wanted, and I gave it a go.

My first try was the Spelt Rosemary Crackers. Daaaaaaannnnngggg! These are *good*. Really. Once you eat these, you will not ever want to buy crackers again.

Spelt Rosemary Crackers

Spelt Rosemary Crackers

Originally uploaded by Bnita-Denise.

2 cups spelt flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-2 T. ground flax seeds/flax seed meal
1/2 t. crushed rosemary (dried or fresh is fine)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup water (add in 2 T. quantities until dough sticks together)

• Mix dry ingredients.
• Add olive oil and mix until mixture resembles corn meal.
• Add in 2 T. quantities until dough sticks together.
• Cover in plastic and let sit in refridgerator for 20 minutes.
• Divide dough into 8 pieces and roll out thin. Place on cookie sheet, sprinkle lightly with coarse sea salt and bake in oven at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes. Turn the crackers over and bake another 5 until golden.
• Makes 8 crackers/flatbreads.

Kamut Crackers and Buckwheat Crackers

Kamut Crackers and Buckwheat Crackers

Originally uploaded by Bnita-Denise.

Okay, so I cheated on these. I had these Arrowhead Mill Pancake Mixes lying around, and I really wanted (for some reason) to try buckwheat crackers. So I used the Buckwheat Pancake Mix, because I didn’t have any buckwheat flour.

Let me tell you that I simply cannot live without these buckwheat sesame crackers that I have made from this mix right now. If I don’t have them every single day I will surely perish and wither away into nothing. Well, it might not be that bad, but these for me are like coffee is for other people. Seriously.

2 cups Arrowhead Mills either Buckwheat Pancake Mix or Kamut Pancake Mix
2 T. sesame seeds
1/4 t. baking powder
4 T. olive oil
~8 T. water (add in 2 T. until dough sticks together)

Same directions as above.

Enjoy the crackers! Let me know how they turn out.

Autumn Pomegranate Salad

Originally uploaded by Bnita-Denise.

You know how there are times when you eat food that is so good that you become instantly enamoured of it? Well. Last night, while attending a pumpkin carving party at my friend Natalie’s house, we ended up creating a salad that has officially rocked my world. Salads are good, but it is fairly rare that I will come across one that just satisifies my tastes completely. Natalie assembled this salad with salad dressing that I just created by vibration a day previous, and my oh my — any future suitors will have to vie for position with this salad, I swear. Here is the recipe for ‘ya. One of the ingredients is a little esoteric, so I am in the process of figuring out a substitute for it.

Natalie and Denise’s Autumn Pomegranate Salad
(please note that I eyeballed this, so measurements are approximate)
Vinaigrette:
1/4 c. red wine vinegar
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 garlic clove
1 t. dijion mustard
1-2 t. quince jam *
1/2 t. herbes de provence

Blend well in a blender or with a hand mixer.

Salad:
mesclun greens
arugula
spinach
pomegranate seeds
sliced almonds, toasted

• Make sure that the almonds are toasted — this really brings out their flavor.
• Mix greens, pomegranate seeds, and almond slices. Dress with vinaigrette.
• Some ideas for extras: sliced pear or sliced apple, manchego cheese, asiaggio cheese (I can’t eat cheese anymore, but I know these would work well with these flavors).

* potentially, you could use apricot or peach jam instead….

Bon Appetit!

I love travel. *Love* it. I love seeing new places, meeting new people, and seeing people that I already know and love. I love making the new place “mine” by finding out the closest place where I can buy agave nectar or a favorite toothpaste. I love walking down an unfamiliar street and soaking up as much as I can about it, and then going back the next day with the perspective of new-found familiarity and a bit of propriety. I love what going to new places brings out of me: a sense of confidence, of competence, of expansion and growth.

I say of all this to inform how the last seven months of my life have been. Driving across the country and hitting the stops of Vancouver BC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tucson, Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Albeuerque, West Memphis, Yellow Springs, New York, Boston, Chapel Hill, and then finally, Miami, has been wonderful, amazing, fantastic. Not only did I get to see many people who have been long-time friends and chosen family, but I also had the space and time for meditative contemplation and reflection while spending whole days driving. It was blissful, it was relaxing, it was heart-warming to have people that I love want to see me and reconnect with me.

And then arriving in South Florida has simply been a continuation of my cross-country journey, but instead of getting myself oriented to a different town every day, I oriented myself to one city and its many different areas. Folks here are still surprised that I know both Miami-Dade and Broward counties as well as I do, but to me they are extensions of the same thing, and both merit knowledge and familiarity. I threw myself right into the mix of meeting people, of going to events, making friends, and building a social network here. Again, I was heartened and encouraged by the enthusiastic response I received from people, and the ease and quickness with which I made friends.

Throughout my road the trip and for the first 5 months here, I felt in the flow: I knew *exactly* what I was doing, exactly where I was going and why. My intention, my purpose, was to get to Miami to build a new life for myself here, to meet the people that I am meet here, to build the friendships and relationships that are simply waiting to come into being, and to take my career to the next level with opportunities that I felt did not necessarily exist for me in Seattle. I felt…pulled, drawn, called even to be in South Florida, not just from the perspective of the weather (which is usually my pat answer for when folks ask why I moved down here), but also from what felt like a deep soul need for change, for difference and for personal growth.

But…but. Lately, although I still feel somewhat in the flow, I sense that somewhere along the way the clarity that had not only surrounded me, but that was intricably intertwined throughout my days, that imbued every action and that held me in a loving embrace every night has somehow slipped away from me. Did I drop it? Did I loose it somewhere on the flight back from Seattle in May when I went to retrieve my items from storage? Did somehow erase it when I cleared the last set pictures from digital camera? Did get mixed with the recycling and get taken away by waste management?

Where is it? Where did it go? Because now, especially with my last trip to Boston and Seattle (from which I just returned on Monday), where I built strong connections with new people, I feel that my clarity has vanished and I can’t for the life of me quite put my finger on when I last felt it.

So, if you see my clarity anywhere, please make sure you drop it by my house. I really miss it.