Munchie Monday: Carrot Onion Crackers!

Last week our food dehydrator arrived.  Not without some hassles but we now have it and IT WORKS!

For some time, maybe two years, I have been watching Tanny Raw on YouTube and her dehydrator crackers videos.  I made some once in our round dehydrator at home and thought they were okay.  Now we have a square dehydrator which is much easier to use.

First crackers were Carrot Onion crackers.

In the high speed blender I did a "wet chop" of 1 Vidalia onion and 2 cups celery then drained them in a colander while I prepared the other ingredients.  Into the blender went 2 cups orange bell peppers, 1 cup carrots, 1/2 cup tomatoes, 1/2 cup raisins and 1 Tablespoon paprika.  Tanny called for smoked paprika but I did not have any.  She also called for 1 Tablespoon garlic powder which I totally spaced out on and did not add.

After finely chopping this batch of ingredients I added the already-chopped onion/celery mixture and blended some more until the bits all were about the same size.  Tanny does not do it that way but I worried about chunks making the crackers fall apart.

At this point I brought out one dehydrator tray and put it on the counter then dumped the pulp onto the silicon-sheet-lined tray (these silicon sheets did not come with the dehydrator and were rather costly but the really work!).  I put it all on one tray and spread it around to make it a nice fat layer, probably thicker than one-half inch.  In retrospect, I should have made it on TWO trays, which I will do next time. And there will be a next time!

After making a nice even layer I slid the tray into the dehydrator and turned it on to 125 degrees F.  Tanny uses 105 degrees, I think, since she is rigidly raw. I am not there yet.  I just wanted something to munch on that isn't killing me slowly...though that seems to be speeding up lately...at least that is how I feel.  Anyway,  after twelve hours (I put the crackers dehydrating at 7:45 PM.  The next morning I pulled them out at 7:30) I pulled out the tray and found them dry enough that I could flip the cracker sheet over and pull off the silicon mat to let them dry more thoroughly.  We then went off to a family history conference.  Late in the afternoon I looked at the crackers again and found them more chewy than crisp so I set them going for another ten hours but dropped the temperature to 115 degrees F.  The next morning I pulled them out and, voilà: crackers! 

They taste good.  Sort of sweet.  Since they were so thick, when I "scored" them before cooking that did not take in a very uniform way so this is what I got.  Funny thing is that I ate a little bit of this first batch, really, a very little bit, and was not hungry all day.  Something else may have been going on, I guess, but I am going to attribute the lack of hunger to the crackers. 

Even funnier thing:  when we came home from Family Home Evening and Dear One was preparing to watch a little NetFlix, he went into the kitchen and got the box of crackers and brought it to the couch!  Funny!  I don't know if he actually ate some but the cover was off and he was chewing  when I came back from talking with Daughter on the phone, so I think I can safely assume he ate some for a snack.

As I mentioned before, I will make these again.

 You can see that the crackers are a little dark. I think that is from setting the dehydrator at 125 degrees F.  I probably won't dehydrate crackers at that temperature again.