Stiff neck, Averie's GF crackers experiment |

Food, Life, Random Talk

Stiff neck, Averie’s GF crackers experiment

Jos

First of all thank you for all your comments and support on my last post. Definitely motivate me working towards to my goal.
How’s everyone’s Saturday so far? My left neck was really stiff since yesterday evening. Not sure what happened, I was TOTALLY fine yesterday until the time I got off from work. I couldn’t even turn my head to look left. Just imagine how painful when I was driving home and had to change to the left lane. Had to turn my entire body to do that..UGH!

But today after my morning jog, my neck was loosen up a bit but not quite yet. And I’ve been feeling quite tired this whole day. Prolly my beach morning jog was a bit too intense? It was quite windy on one way and I had to really push myself. I felt the faster I jog, the harder the wind blew on me. I couldn’t even hear my music from my BB speakerphone.

hrm2 — click for larger view. My max heart rate was 204 bpm?? What that even real? Though my average was only 147 bpm

After the jog, we had to go for some grocery shopping on the way back. I snacked on Boomi Bar Perfect Pumpkin to refuel my energy.

Unlike other Boomi Bars I tried before this one was ok. It was very sweet and don’t think I like the texture as much. There were generous amount of pumpkin seeds though. Heck I was starving so I still finished it.

Breakfast was the same as yesterday, oatmeal with raw homemade almond milk with non fat plain yogurt topped with jumbo raisins. Unlike this pic which I took yesterday, this morning version was super watery as I ran out of oats and a bit too much almond milk.

So earlier this week I was already planning to do some cooking/baking project for this long weekend. But because of my stiff neck, that plan had to be postponed a bit. But that didn’t stop me to try to make Averie’s Vegan GF Crackers! My husband was out for the whole day to help his brother with his new house so might as well I kept myself busy. Better than napping the whole day, right? The weather was very sunny with cool breeze in So Cal today, perfect for sleep in. But I chose not to.

I made myself a quick lunch, big ass plate of spring mix salad with baby carrots, topped with nutritional yeast dissolved with some water, nuked 4 egg whites topped with ketchup, “curly fish ball thingy” and a handful of raw almonds and Carr’s Water Crackers on the side.

egg — I didn't finish the almonds for lunch but I ate it later on for snack

After lunch, I made a quick run to TJ to get the ingredients for the crackers: Golden flaxseeds and sunflower seeds. They didn’t have chia seeds so I substitute that with white sesame seeds.

I wanted to make more savory crackers rather than sweet ones, so I altered Averie’s recipe a bit.
1/3 cup sesame seeds
1/3 cup flax seeds
1/3 cup sunflower seeds
a pinch of salt
1-2 Tbsp honey
2 tsp garlic powder
2-6 Tbsp water

Directions:
1. Blend the seeds in the blender- be careful not to do it too long- still need to leave some chunks

2. I didn’t pour the wet ingredients in the blender cause I didn’t want it to stick at the bottom of the blender. Instead I pour out the coarsely chopped seeds into a bowl and mix in the sald, honey, garlic powder, salt and water. I used my own judgment not to make it too watery or too dry.

3. Line everything on the cookie sheet. I used aluminum foil. Spread it evenly.

4. Bake in the oven 300 F for about 20 minutes or something. I kept changing the oven temperature and kept an eye on it. I changed the temperature to 250F towards the end. Also I flipped them over so the other side will get dried as well.

crackerdone — finished product. I broke the cracker sheet when I flipped it earlier.

crackers1 — Immediately I cut them into pieces before it cooled down.

cracker2 — some part are not as crunchy as I expected but still good..pretty nutty and I could taste the sesame seeds

crackers3 — not as pretty as Averie's, but it's still edible..haha

I also roasted 2 eggplants, thinking to make baba ganoush but because of my stiff neck, I scrapped that plan. Instead I made this Korean style eggplant side dish. Pretty easy, just peeled off the skin, squeezed out the water out, mixed in with Korean hot pepper paste (gochujang), a bit of salt and some nori furikake, you’re done! Doesn’t look that pretty but it’s good!