Nouveau Raw’s Cheese Nip Crackers

Cheese-Its sound great – until you pick up a box and look at the ingredients… These deliciously crunchy and cheesy tasting raw crackers by Amie Sue of Nouveau Raw are the perfect healthy alternative to keep around the house for both kids and adults alike. They’ll most definitely satisfy those cravings. Delicious on their own, paired with a salad, or dunked in a bowl of soup!

Ingredients

• 1 cup raw cashews (**soaked in water for 2 hrs)
• 1 large red bell pepper, seeded and rough chopped
• 2 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/2 tsp of red chili pepper flakes
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 2 cups of zucchini (peeled and diced)
• 1 cup raw almond meal (see below)
• 2 Tbsp of ground flax seeds

Instruction

1) Chop the red pepper into small pieces and add to a blender with the lemon juice. Blend until smooth.
2) Add the cashews, red chili pepper flakes and salt and again blend until smooth.
3) Add the nutritional yeast and blend again.  Doing it in stages like this helps you to get the smooth consistency you need without over-heating it.
4) Slowly add in the zucchini, *almond meal and ground flax seeds, until well blended.
*To make your own almond meal, place almonds in the food processor and process to a fine powder.  Be careful that you don’t over-process and release to much of the nuts natural oi.
5) Pour onto teflex dehydrator sheets and dehydrate at 145 degrees for 1 hour, then reduce temp to 105 degrees and dehydrate for approx. 4 hrs.
6) At this point, if they are dry enough, flip the teflex sheet over so the cracker is now sandwiched between the teflex and mesh sheet.  Peel the teflex sheet off, leaving the cracker on the mesh sheet.  This is a good time to score the crackers into the desired shape and sprinkle a little extra salt on top.  Continue dehydrating for another 16 hours or until crisp.

Notes

**The reason for soaking the cashews is to just soften them up so they blend nice and smooth