March 2022: Crackers

When I was little, my parents served the same pre-dinner snacks whenever they had guests over. Stoned Wheat Thins and cheese. They had one of those elegant cheese slicers that you run along the top of the cheese block to create thin cheese slices. I would sit on the floor, listen to the adult conversation, and eat a lot of cheese and crackers. It was actually quite wonderful to be a “fly on the wall” listening to the laughter and conversation. I can remember my parents allowing people to smoke, which is impossible to imagine now with all we later learned about second-hand smoke. I loved the smell of cigarettes! Funny thing is I don’t remember anything after the cheese course. Did I eat with the guests? Was I given my own special meal? I guess for me it was all about those Stoned Wheat Thins.

Here I am now in my year of cooking from scratch, and snacks are my biggest challenge. I eat a lot of fruit, but I’m not so flush on the savory snacks. I found a pretty good nutty snack recipe, but the challenge is that it is very easy to overeat nuts. I thought I’d make a lot of popcorn this year, but making popcorn is loud, smelly, and messy so I’ve spared my husband the bother. So I tried crackers.

I pulled together a bunch of cracker recipes, but because of what I can only imagine is sheer laziness, I stuck with just one recipe, from The Pioneer Woman blog. It’s just flour, sugar, oil, salt, and water, and then any additional nuts, seeds, or cheeses you want to bake in (I’m partial to sesame seeds). And they turn out pretty good! I have, however, found them a little tricky to get right and for some reason, the cook time is a little different every time I make them. Sometimes the timings are different even for different pans in the same oven at the same time. So you have to watch them as they bake. I’ve also found they taste best if you eat them the same day you make them because they can get stale fast. Another tip is to roll them really thin because then they are much crispier and more cracker-like.

I’m still in search of the perfect snack. Crackers don’t last long enough—partly because I eat them too fast and partly because they don’t have a long shelf life. I miss being able to reach for a bag of Smartfood to pop handfuls into my mouth. Or how about Triscuits? I miss their salty, buttery goodness. But at least my consumption of processed foods is way down! How much that matters seems to be a point of debate among certain dietitians, but I don’t see anyone recommending more consumption of processed foods. So I’ll take that as a win…