Maddie Day here, delighted to welcome my good friend Cheryl Hollon as our guest! She has a new series and a giveaway, too.
This is Cheryl Hollon,
waving to all of you who are staying home to flatten the curve. Not a sentence
I ever thought I would write.
In these interesting
times, I’m doing a lot more baking – more than I have been for the holiday
season in December! Anyway, I have found these crackers to touch all the
comfort bases. A very short list of ingredients, a simple recipe, and I
can do the whole thing in less than thirty minutes. Enjoy!
Homemade Herb Crackers
Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose
flour, or a mixture of all-purpose and whole grain flours
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons
extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup water
1 tablespoon herb seasoning
Equipment:
Parchment Paper
Baking Sheets
Mixing Bowl
Measuring Cups
Measure Spoons
Spatula
Rolling Pin
Pastry Brush
Pizza Cutter or Sharp
Knife
Dinner Fork
Cooling Rack
Airtight Container
Directions:
Preheat oven to 450
degrees. Position the bottom rack to the lower third of the oven. Cut a piece
of parchment paper to fit the baking sheet.
Mix the flour, sugar,
and salt together in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
Add the oil and water to
the flour mixture. Stir until the flour is incorporated. If flour remains in
the bowl, add more water a tablespoon at a time until a sticky dough ball is
formed.
Divide the dough in half
and shape one portion into a flat square. Sprinkle your work surface as well as
your rolling pin with a little flour.
Roll out the dough
working from the center out shaping it into a 1/8 inch thick or thinner
rectangle. The thinner the dough the crisper the cracker.
Brush the surface of the
dough very lightly with water. Shake the herbs onto the surface of the dough in
an even coverage. See the Note for topping ideas.
Using the pizza cutter
or knife, cut the dough into individually shaped crackers. You can make
squares, diamonds, rectangles, or use cookie cutters.
Transfer the crackers to
a baking sheet then prick each cracker with the tines of the dinner fork to
prevent them from puffing up too much.
Bake the crackers for
12-15 minutes, until the edges are browned. Thinner crackers will bake quicker
so you can remove them and continue baking the thicker ones. While the first
batch is baking, roll out and cut the remaining dough.
When the crackers are
browned to your preference, transfer to a wire rack to cool. They can be stored
in an airtight container for 3-5 days. If they turn a little less-than-crispy,
reheat in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes.
Makes about 50
Note: My husband and I love these crackers with chili and
also with soup. They look fabulous on a charcuterie board of meats and cheeses.
For a variation, I top the crackers with kosher salt, chili powder, or a Greek
seasoning. It’s extremely flexible and lends itself to experimentation. Have
fun!
And now, a little bit of
information about my brand-new mystery series:
Artist Miranda Trent inherits her uncle’s
farm located in eastern Kentucky – right smack dab in the Daniel Boone National
Forest. She starts a cultural adventure business which combines an outdoor
painting class followed by a southern cooking lesson and paired with a
moonshine tasting. She calls it Paint-n-Shine.
The first book in the
series, Still Knife Painting, releases on June 30, 2020, and is available
for pre-order at the following links:
Isn’t this a gorgeous cover! Here’s the cover copy:
Miranda Trent has set
up a sweet life in a scenic corner of Appalachia—until she stumbles across the
trail of a killer . . .
After inheriting her uncle’s Red River Gorge
homestead in Eastern Kentucky—smack dab in the middle of the Daniel Boone
National Forest—Miranda comes up with a perfect business plan for summer
tourists: pairing outdoor painting classes with sips of local moonshine,
followed by a mouthwatering sampler of the best in southern cooking.
To Miranda’s delight, Paint & Shine is a
total success—until someone kills the cook. As the town’s outsider, suspicion
naturally falls on Miranda. Murdering the best biscuit baker of Red River Gorge
is a high crime in these parts. Miranda will have to prove her innocence before
she’s moved from farmhouse to jail cell faster than she can say “white
lightning” . . .
There’s a giveaway! Leave a comment to this blog
and your email address in the form of name(AT)server(DOT)com to avoid the SPAM
bots. This is a US only giveaway. Do this by midnight on April 20 for the
chance to win a signed Advanced Review Copy of Still Knife Painting.
About the author:
Cheryl
Hollon writes full time after leaving an engineering career designing and
building military flight simulators in amazing countries such as England,
Wales, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan and India. Fulfilling a
lifetime dream, she combines her love of writing with a passion for art,
cooking, and outdoor adventures.
Cheryl is
Past President of the Florida Gulf Coast Sisters in Crime, a member of Mystery
Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. A mystery conference
addict, she regularly attends SleuthFest in Florida, Malice Domestic in DC,
ThrillerFest in NYC, and Magna Cum Murder in Indianapolis, IN . You will
also find her at Left Coast Crime and Bouchercon, wherever they are being held.
Cheryl
and her husband live in St. Petersburg, FL.
