These Pumpkin Lentil Flax Crackers would be perfect as an appetizer for a Thanksgiving gathering. They’re festive and chock-full of healthy ingredients like lentils, flaxseed, coconut oil, and beets – yes, beets! This recipe was a bit of an accident. Earlier this year I was trying to make a cracker in honor of Valentines Day and wanted to use a natural ingredient to color the dough red so I added beets, which did in fact make the dough a beautiful shade of red. The only problem was that when baked the color of the dough faded to orange. The crackers still tasted delicious so I posted the recipe anyway but they were not what I had envisioned. I did, however, make a mental note to recycle this recipe for Thanksgiving because the crackers turned out to be the perfect shade of pumpkin orange! If you don’t like beets I hope you won’t shy away from making these delicious crackers. I don’t like beets but I love these crackers. I know it sounds odd to use beets as an ingredient in crackers but you don’t really taste them – they just give the crackers a hearty, earthy quality that would be lacking without them.

You need to roll the dough out very thin for these crackers otherwise they will be dense and chewy instead of thin and crispy. This is the specialty rolling pin I use and it works great for rolling out dough very thinly and evenly. Use a 3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out the pumpkins and a 2 inch round cookie cutter to make the pumpkin curves. (A pairing knife would work too.)

Since this recipe makes a lot of crackers – about 4 1/2 dozen – you may want to store some in the freezer. The baked crackers freeze beautifully.

These are clean tasting, mild crackers that go with just about any type of humus, dip, or cheese. They’d be delicious with Roasted Garlic Avocado White Bean Dip. They’re vegan and gluten-free too. Most store bought gluten-free crackers contain ingredients like potato starch and refined oil. When possible it’s always better to make your own.

Healthy and delicious Pumpkin Lentil Flax Crackers would make a beautiful addition to any Thanksgiving buffet table!



Pumpkin Lentil Flax Crackers Print Author: QUEEN OF MY KITCHEN Serves: Makes about 56 crackers. Serving size: 3 crackers Ingredients 2 cups red lentil flour

1 – 8¼ ounce can of beets or 1 cup of cooked, pureed beets (see note below)

½ cup ground flaxseed + 1 teaspoon

⅓ cup coconut oil, melted (see note below)

1½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

½ ounce raw, shelled pumpkin seeds Instructions Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine the red lentil flour with the ground flaxseed (1/2 cup), salt, and pepper. If using canned beets, dump the contents of the can of beets into a blender and process until smooth. Add the beet puree to the lentil flour mixture along with the melted coconut oil. Mix well. Gather the dough into a ball, knead it a few times, and then wrap it in plastic wrap. When you’re ready to roll out the crackers pinch off 2 ½ ounces of the dough (roughly the size of a golf ball) and roll it out between two sheets of plastic wrap until it is very thin, approximately ⅛th to 1/16th of an inch thick. Using a 3 inch pumpkin shaped cookie cutter, stamp out the crackers and place them on the baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining dough. (Keep the dough well wrapped in between rolling so it doesn’t dry out.) Using a pairing knife or the edge of a 2 inch round cookie cutter that has been dipped in a little bit of red lentil flour to prevent sticking, make the curves on each side of the pumpkin crackers. Press lightly to make a noticeable indentation but avoid cutting all the way through the dough. Mix 1 tsp of ground flaxseed with 1 Tablespoon of water and brush a little bit of this mixture onto the stems of each cracker before pressing one pumpkin seed firmly into the stems. Bake for 12-16 minutes minutes on the bottom racks of the oven, rotating the baking sheets halfway through the baking time, until the crackers are just starting to brown around the edges. Notes *One 8¼ ounce can of beets makes exactly the amount needed for this recipe but if you want to use fresh cooked beets simply puree 8 ounces of cooked beets along with a little bit of water until you have the consistency of a smoothie and then measure out 1 cup.



*3 ounces of unmelted coconut oil yields about ⅓ cup when melted. Nutrition Information Serving size: 3 crackers, Calories: 140, Fat: 6g, Saturated fat: 3g, Unsaturated fat: 3g, Trans fat: 0g, Carbohydrates: 16g, Sugar: 1g, Sodium: 193mg, Fiber: 4g, Protein: 7g, Cholesterol: 0mg 3.5.3208

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