Cilantro Chickpea Crackers & Easy Tomato Chutney GF

Sorry it has been so long since my last post.  Life is going 1,000,000 miles an hour with lots of change in the air.  New school, new home and new work- all in less than 1 months time.  So needless to say I have not stopped cooking but it’s having the time to post them.  In addition, my computer is on the brink and I think it has officially died.  Oh how timing is everything.

The gluten free saga continues on but today with great success in my first cracker recipe.  I have been trying to come up with convienent “carb” type snacks so I can easily grab something before I head to a long day of school. {which starts in only two weeks!}

Yesterday I woke up fairly early, around 6:30 and before I knew it I had found a cracker recipe that I thought I would attempt.  I have always thought it looked like such a lengthy process and been turned off by the idea.  But I have a lot of cilantro to use up and I hate spending $4 or more dollars on a small bag of gluten free chips that I would prefer not contain tons of soy products. {I have noticed that I have a bad reaction to soy and I am avoiding it}

So here are my lovely chickpea crackers

Usually I do not like the taste of chickpea flour in baked goods but for some reason it really worked here.  Perhaps it is the Indian spices that covered it up, although they still had a “neutral” flavor.  The only part I will advise you about is “kneading” and “rolling”. Flour your hands, the batter issuper sticky.  But don’t worry that problem is easily fixed with some sorghum flour lightly coating your hands and the rolling mat.

You can find the original recipe here.  The only thing I did not use is the methi powder.  It has a bitter taste and I don’t care for it so I just omitted it.  I also under cooked them slightly so they are a bit softer instead of super crunchy.  I really loved the result.

I also made an AMAZING tomato chutney- seriously I don’t think I can not have this is my fridge, I plan to make a huge batch after trying it out yesterday.  It is crazy good.

I used 5 vine ripened tomatoes and omitted the cornstarch.  Check out the recipe here

This was so good I wanted to eat it with a spoon.  At 7 in the morning.  Is there something wrong with that? 😉

This would be very convienent for a quick to prepare appetizers or snack for last minute guest.  Plus it is very budget friendly.

Easy Vegan Cashew Cream Sauce, 2 Ways

Of all the nuts out there, cashews are sort of my least favorite.  I’ve just never been a big fan.  I’ll take an almond or a walnut over them any day.

Well until now.

And I have especially never liked cream sauces, yick for whatever reason they have never been appetizing to me.

Well until now.

Let me just tell you, I don’t know what I was initially planning to do with this recipe but I do know I ended up with 2 amazing different sauces.  Lets just say I may have put them in tuber ware and then I may have opened them up before they even had time to cool.  And before I knew it they were gone.  Everything just happened so fast.  I almost forgot how I made them–almost.  So for those who are skeptical of a dairy-free cream sauce and also don’t like cashews, you must try this.  Not only do the cashews add a nutty, thick consistency but they go so well with everything!

The first sauce I made was a thyme, lemon and “parmesan cheese” sauce aka nutritional yeast.  Now I am not into the taste of nutritional yeast but here you really can’t even taste it.

Sorry for the crappy picture, but this is about as far as this sauce made it before I ate the whole thing with some left over homemade dosa.  It was so easy to make and once I get more cashews, this has date night written all over it. 😉

The second sauce I did was Indian of course.  I used a lotttt of spices but that’s how I like my Indian food-spicy.  Not even necessarily in the sense that it’s “hot” but I want a lot of flavors going on.  So that’s what I did.

 Check out that pretty paprika-chili powder swirl.  This was so good!  I would have totally put this with cauliflower and eggplant if I hadn’t…. yeah you know.  It may have just been a spoon, I can’t even remember. 😉

Ingredients:

heaping 1/4 cup cashews

-Soak in 1 cup hot water for at least 10 minutes.  Puree the entire thing and separate in half.

Lemon Thyme Garlic Cream Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 cashew puree

1-2 garlic cloves

1/2 onion

4-5 sprigs of thyme

juice of half a lemon

sprinkle nutritional yeast

{{For those unsure of nutritional yeast, it is a very healthy vitamin packed faux cheese for vegans to use as a substitute for Parmesan.  Check it out at iherb.com   This website is AMAZING and I buy everything from there.  It has lots of healthy items, gluten free products galore & it is so affordable!!!

Since I order from them all the time they are giving me an awesome coupon code to share–>Place your first order and you will receive $10 off of $40 and up — or $5 off first orders of less than $40.  Here’s the code  SEH416    }}

for non-vegan version, grated Parmesan

Directions:

Slice and saute onion till just beginning to brown.  Add cashew puree, and the rest of ingredients.  Simmer for 3 minutes until garlic is fragrant.  Season with S&P

Indian Coconut Cashew Cream Sauce:

–if you are new to Indian spices, cut my proportions in half-I like it intense 😉

1/2 cashew puree

1 tsp turmeric (go light on this if you are not used to it)

1.5 tsp garam masala

2 tsp curry powder

.5 tsp ground coriander

dash of cumin

.5 tsp paprika

.5-1 tsp chili powder

1-2 tsp full fat coconut milk-(more for more coconut flavor)

Directions:

Mix everything together-yup that easy.