A Quick Fix Lunch of Hummus and Cracker Bread

By day, I am a graphic designer. This means that I fine-tune headlines, and combine colors, imagery and fonts to help people understand information better. I love it! It takes both sides of my brain to be creative and practical at the same time. It fits well with my skill sets and it’s challenging too. Sure, designers have their quirks. We have font-favorites, and fonts that we boycott (curse you, Comic Sans!). I’m adventurous in my personal style – my closet has every color in the rainbow. And I will hang on to random papers – wedding invitations, gift tags, the list goes on – because the texture is so fabulous that I just might come up with a way to repurpose it someday. The only problem is: design is a computer job, and I often get so sucked into my projects that I’m glued to my desk over the lunch hour. To combat this problem, I like to have easy lunch options on hand for a quick, healthy bite to eat.

One of my favorite easy lunch choices is hummus on grainy crackers along with a side of fruit. It’s tasty and light, and requires about zero prep time. What I found, though, was that the tastiest organic crackers were expensive! So, I was thrilled to find this recipe for Flax Seed Cracker Bread. It’s low fat, you can customize the texture with your favorite seedy grains, and it literally costs about a dollar per batch in ingredients. Did I mention that it’s super-tasty? Seriously, when I brought my lunch today, my co-workers were all asking for the recipe!

To make this healthy cracker bread, start by heating the oven to 375° F. I rarely have buttermilk on hand, so an easy substitution is milk and lemon juice or vinegar. If you go this route, now is the time to combine those ingredients so they have ten minutes to react and thicken up while you’re working with the rest of the ingredients.

Combine the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.

Cut in the butter with a fork, or you could use a pastry cutter like I did. Combine just until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs.

Add the buttermilk (or pseudo-buttermilk if you did the substitute like I did). Mix until the dough is just moistened. The dough will still appear crumbly.

Add the flax seed and/or sesame seeds (I used two tablespoons of flax seed, one tablespoon of sesame seeds) for that nice seedy texture.

Remove the dough from the bowl, and place it on a lightly flour surface (cutting board, counter, etc.). Knead the dough a few times to thoroughly combine it.

Divide the dough into two chunks. Grease the baking sheets, and then use a floured rolling pin to roll out each chunk of dough into a thin, even sheet. The thinner the dough, the crisper the crackers will get.

Use a fork to prick the dough all over.

Place the sheets of dough into the oven for 12-15 minutes (until golden brown).

Allow the cracker bread to cool, and then break it up into smaller pieces. You can serve Flax Seed Cracker Bread with cheeses or a great spinach artichoke dip. It would be a very inexpensive solution for bringing appetizers to a party!
Or, if you’re like me and always scrambling for a quick lunch, you can divide the flatbread into baggies and have individual servings ready to eat with hummus. Here’s what my desk looked like at lunchtime today. Yum!

Try making your own Flax Seed Cracker Bread and rate the recipe for us! I’d love to hear what modifications you would make for a grainier or smoother cracker.

Come back in a few days when Alex will share a gluten-free cookie everyone will love.

Amanda is paid to write for the Land O’Lakes Recipe Buzz® Blog.