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One of my favorite 40th birthday gifts was a cookbook of crackers and dips. Those who know me or have been reading since the Tell-a-Friend cracker contest will know that I like to bake crackers and make dips. My good lady wife knows me so well that she bought me Ivy Manning's Crackers & Dips. So far, I've made spelt pretzel rounds (meh) and paper-thin semolina cracker sheets (yummy crowd pleaser) and, um, homemade Cheezits. Also, I bought a dual-head pastry wheel with a straight wheel and a crimped one.
When I posted a photo of the homemade Cheezit recipe on facebook (ugh, I make my own self sick typing that sentence), a friend responded "recipe or it didn't happen". So here it is. They're pretty habit-forming, so those with addictive personalities, take note.
Some notes: I got the anatto paste (aka achiote paste) at my favorite Mexican grocery. I also actually went to my local crunchy food coop and bought nonhydrogenated vegetable shortening. Don't know if that made a difference. The thinner I rolled these, the better.
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.
Just 2 more days until the May 15 deadline to Tell a Friend about Competent Parent. The prize: homemade crackers for you and your friend. Get on it.
Contest rules:
-You tell someone about the blog. Someone posts a comment, saying they heard about CP from you. You and someone win homemade crackers.
-All of this telling and commenting has to happen by May 15.
-Crackers will be sent only within the continental US.
Do it.
Chances are really
good that the friend you refer
will win the crackers.
Details here.
If you're traveling this weekend and seeing friends and family you don't normally see, maybe you'd like to help yourself and a friend win some crackers. It might go like this:
"Pass the ham. Have I told you about this blog I read?"
or
"Mother, I don't want to talk about it right now. But I do want to talk about this blog I read."
Contest rules:
-You tell someone about the blog. Someone posts a comment, saying they heard about CP from you. You and someone win homemade crackers.
-All of this telling and commenting has to happen by May 15.
-Crackers will be sent within the continental US. (Don't know if I said that the first time around, but come on.)
Do it.
According to Google Analytics, March was my best month yet for reader volume. Not content to rest on those laurels, I'm pleased to announce the Competent Parent Tell-a-Friend Contest. One or more winners will get a unique prize!
Up to now, I've known many of my readers in real life (RL). I'm terribly pleased about that, but I can't help but wonder how many people might read this blog if each of my regular readers told a friend or family member about it. I also wonder if this blog is merely a good way to stay in touch with family and friends or it it's relevant to a wider audience.
The prize is a batch of home-made, toasted sesame crackers that I will mail in RL to the winner(s). 2 ways to win, both by someone leaving a comment:
1. A friend that you tell about Competent Parent reads the blog and leaves a substantive comment telling me who referred them. The friend and the referrer both win crackers.
2. In order to reward the strangers already reading CP, if you leave a substantive comment, and I don't know you, you win a batch of crackers.
Contest deadline: May 5. Winners will be drawn at random from all commenters between now and then.
