The sound you hear in the background is my dehydrator. I apologize, I know it’s loud. That’s why it’s in the dining room. Sorry about that but it’s the time of year where I seem to use it the most. I harken back to this time last September when my oldest OS was preparing for his second ACL surgery and I was busy making him healthy treats to help his recovery. Wistful, relieved and bountiful describe that time and season of life.

My house smells like apples and cinnamon. I have apple slices, apple leathers loaded in many dehydrator trays and granola filling in the remaining of the nine trays. Ike is eating his weight in granola and in the past week, I’ve also dehydrated beef jerky for a friend which I carefully kept away from my drooling, orange hair, freckle face OS.

Autumnal colors enter my home and since finding the Sherwin Williams ColorSnap app, I’m a dither with discovering possible color pallets for my home, should the opportunity ever exist.

So today I grabbed my iPhone after making a batch of granola and took pictures. With 50 pounds of old-fashioned oats, (yes, 50), I’d say I have a lot of granola to make. Throwing in some dehydrated cherries from the summer or a handful of pepitas and suddenly I feel like a fancy girl. I like fancy girl feelings.

With a hankering for another kind of crunchy, I began soaking flax seed, sesame, poppy and pumpkin seeds for a raw cracker and took more pictures. The colors were captivating and the names Sherwin Williams uses for each color, well to me they seem inspired. (Btw, I’m not a paid endorser of Sherwin Williams!).

Which one of these colors would you most welcome into your home? I’d love to hear and if you use the app, tell me what colors you discovered.

In my next post, I’ll write about pre-soaking grains. I’m learning about this concept and it’s intriguing.

Until then, here’s the recipe I use for the raw multi-seed crackers –

1 cup flax seeds, golden or brown

1/2 cup mixed seeds, for example, sesame, sunflower and pumpkin

1/2 t. sea salt

1 teaspoon smoked paprika (hot or mild) or cumin seeds or ground chili pepper or the spice/spice mix of your choice

The night before, put the flax seeds in a medium bowl and add 1 cup of water. In another bowl, put the mixed seeds and add water to cover.

In the morning, drain the mixed seeds well and add them to the soaked and now gel-like flax seeds (these need no draining). Add the salt and paprika and stir well with a fork to combine.

Spread very thinly on one or two dehydrator trays lined with solid sheets. An offset spatula, the kind you use to frost a cake – makes spreading easier. Sprinkle a touch more salt on the surface. (I don’t because they seem too salty).

Dehydrate at 110 degrees fahrenheit for about six hours until dry and crisp. About three hours into the dehydrating, flip the crackers so they will dehydrate evenly. Break into pieces once cooled.

One more thing, Excalibur is having 10% off until 9/30/2012, check it out!  Shawn, tell the Hubs if he loves you, he’ll get you one of these too!