Tell-a-Friend: Duh! Winning!

We have 2 winners! Dan told Karl, and Karl commented. Dan and Karl won crackers, drawn at random from among the referrers and new commenters during the contest.

Thanks to everyone who told a friend about Competent Parent during the contest. Thank you to those who commented for the first time. New readers, I hope you find yourself infotained and will stay around.

Finally, to close the contest, here's the recipe for crackers that I use all the time:

Jeff Forster’s Crackers
(adapted slightly from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything)

Makes about 4 servings

Time: About 15 minutes

1 cups (about 4 ½ ounces) all-purpose flour, plus more as needed
½ teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter
About ¼ cup water, plus more as needed

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2. Place the flour, salt and butter together in a large bowl or in the container of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Blend with a fork or pulse, until the flour and butter are combined. Add about ¼ cup of water and blend, then continue to add water in small amounts as necessary until the mixture holds together but is not sticky.

3. Roll out on a lightly floured surface until ¼ inch thick, or even less. Don’t worry about overhandling – add flour as needed, and keep rolling. Transfer to baking sheet or baking stone. Score lightly with a sharp knife or razor if you want to break these into nice squares or rectangles later on. Perforate uniformly with a fork to prevent bubbling. Bake until lightly browned about 10 minutes. Cool on a rack; serve warm or at room temperature, or store in a bag/tin.

Notes:
· I often add toasted sesame seeds. I toast them myself in a skillet, watching them closely because they go from right to overdone in a second. I usually add 1-2 Tbsp per recipe. I throw them into the food processor before the water.
· The recipe is amenable to doubling, and the crackers go so fast that I almost always double it.
· You can also top the crackers with salt, sesame seeds or poppy seeds or work a tiny bit of garlic or herbs into the dough.