Raisin Crackers!

A few days ago I got a Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer in the mail.  I always read these cover to cover out of personal interest and for work (gotta check out the competition!).  The rosemary raisin crackers caught my eye because at first they sounded disgusting, but the more I thought about them, the more I wanted to try them.  

But, lest I be a traitor to my beloved co-op, I figured I'd better give it a try making these at home first. 

(Note: I'm kind of kidding- I feel a bit like a traitor when I go there, but I think Trader Joe's is good at what they do and my co-op is good at what we do.  Our products overlap somewhat, but we're VERY different businesses with different strengths.  End note).

Now back to the crackers.  

I mixed up my usual flour blend for cracker dough (from Food in Jars) and added in the fun stuff.  For this first try, I ground up salted, roasted almonds and raisins (1/4 cup each) in a little food processor and added them to the flour before mixing in the oil and water.  For the seasonings, I used whole cumin seed, fennel seed and pink Himalayan salt.

Then I rolled these out like usual and baked.  Here's where the problems started.  I didn't grind up the almonds and raisins fine enough, so the dough wouldn't roll out thin enough.  So with thicker dough, I couldn't get the crackers crispy without cooking so long that the sugars in the raisins started to burn!

So I have some crispy, fairly browned crackers and some....  slightly soft flatbread things.  The flavor is out of this world, though.  I can't stop eating them despite their wonky texture!

Next time I'll grind the almonds VERY finely.  And I should probably taste the TJ's version, just to see what I'm up against!

A Proper Pantry

I know people are really busy these days, but I think it's really important to make time in life for baking cookies. Or bread.  Or bars.  Or really just cooking in general.  So many people think they're too busy to bake cookies, but I think that with a properly organized pantry, it doesn't take more than 5-10 minutes of actual work to pull a couple dozen cookies out of the oven.

Remember the old study that showed that using a boxed mix isn't any faster than baking from scratch?  Sometimes just the perception of something being time-consuming can keep you from doing it.  Sure, baking cookies takes longer than opening a package of Oreos.  But it's only a few minutes and the taste is SO much better.  Not to mention, home-baked whole grain, naturally sweetened cookies with actual dark chocolate, fruit and nuts are a heck of a lot healthier.  

As long as you have all of the ingredients you need and are able to read a recipe, you can bake a little something.  But finding all the ingredients you need is pretty critical.  If it's hard to find the baking soda and the chocolate chips are hidden, baking becomes a chore.  This is where having an organized pantry comes in.

Labeling
I'm a big fan of organizing things in jars (what?  you hadn't noticed?).  And I'm an even bigger fan of using a label-maker in conjunction with said jars.  This, paired with logical placement of the baking ingredients on the pantry shelf makes whipping up some cookies no big deal.

Grouping
I recommend grouping your ingredients as they are found in recipes rather than alphabetically.  So my dry baking ingredients are together (baking powder, sugar, cocoa, xanthan gum), my liquid sweeteners are together  (agave, stevia, brown rice syrup, etc.) and my flours are together (millet, tapioca, wheat, pastry, etc.).  Spices are grouped similarly, but then alphabetized within each group.

Stocking Up

It's also important not to run out of your baking staples.  I like to know that on any given day I have the ingredients make nearly any basic baked good: gluten free chocolate chip cookies, a loaf of whole wheat bread, biscuits, cornbread, etc.  Sure, this required extra attention when making my grocery list- But it's pretty easy if you use a grocery list template!  

My list template is an Excel spreadsheet of all the staple grocery store items I never want to run out of.  There's a column for us to check off when we use the last of something.  This means that everyone in the family is responsible for adding to the list as they use the last of foods.  Then when it's time to shop, I just grab the list, do a quick check and then head to the co-op!  Everyone's list is different, but just send me an email if you'd like my copy to use as a starting point for creating your own.  

My guess is that if you're still reading this, you're either already doing most of these things yourself and this is making perfect sense or you're concerned about my sanity for caring so much about the organization of my pantry.  But I promise that it helps make cooking and baking so much faster and easier if you organize things and always keep the staples in stock.  And anything that enables me to bake two dozen Chocolate Trail Mix Cookies (when it was parent-teacher conference night, I had to work until after 7pm and still hadn't made my dinner at 8pm) is worth it.