If I can't drive to the grocery store...

Since I'm still in the process of learning to drive a car with a manual transmission (and learning what French road signs mean), I found myself in a bit of a situation when I got hungry for a snack. We had a fridge full of cheese, but no crackers, so I decided I would make my own. I did a quick search on "easy cracker recipe" and found a great, simple base recipe on recipetips.com. Since my package of herbs and spices hasn't arrived yet, I decided to mix in a healthy chunk of of a goat cheese that we had on hand, which had herbs de provence already mixed into it. I also reduced the salt a bit and used this amazing butter* that is sold here, which has sea salt crystals mixed in.


After I made the dough, I split it in half and rolled out two separate sheets of crackers. I placed thinly sliced tomatoes on top of one sheet, and left the other plain. Both crackers tasted great, but the tomato crackers didn't get as crisp as the plain, because of the liquid in the tomato. Next time I would puree the tomatoes and mix directly into the dough, in place of some of the water. Since I didn't have a rolling pin, I pressed the dough out using the back of a spoon. It resulted in an imperfect, bumpy look that has a lot more character than a store bought cracker.

I plan to experiment with this recipe a lot more. Next time I'll try using olive oil instead of butter, and adding in some freshly ground pepper. Another option would be to flavor the crackers with parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes, or even experiment with adding some canned beans or olives to the dough, or using different types of flour.

It's good to know that crackers are so easy to make. If you're feeling too lazy to leave the house, all you need is some flour, salt, and butter, and you can have yummy fresh baked crackers in 30 minutes! Bon appetit!

* I've had an equally delicious butter in Boston made by the Vermont Butter & Cheese Company. It is sold at Russo's.