the tale of the dehydrated cauliflower flakes

For a while now I've had a dream of a big carton of dehydrated cauliflower flakes, a la instant mashed potatoes. Because I love mashed cauliflower, but one of my favorite past times is putting in an inordinate amount of time on one task just to make another task down the road faster and easier. I googled around and couldn't find that anyone had attempted this exact scenario, so I thought, well, why not give it a try?

So, a couple weeks ago, I started a test run with a single head of cauliflower.

in case you forgot what cauliflower looks like

 I decided to cook it, then mash it, as if I was just going to serve it up.

chopped into manageable pieces

make-shift steamer basket of tin foil

makeshift lid of tin foil. look, I never said I had a fully stocked kitchen

poking with a skewer to determine done-ness

I originally tried using a hand masher. HAHA NO. technology to the rescue!

since my plan was to dehydrate this, I didn't add anything except some water to help liquefy the cauliflower. no butter, no flavorings.

one head of mashed cauliflower fit 2 Excalibur trays

CLOSE UP ACTION SHOT

I stuck the trays in my dehydrator for a fairly long time, at a low temperature. The next day, I had cauliflower that resembled a desert.

aerial shot of Death Valley? or dehydrated cauliflower? you decide!

it released from the Paraflexx sheets fairly easily and crumbled into large-ish flakes

one head of cauliflower, dehydrated. this is a quart-sized bag

Now I fully intended to attempt rehydration in a day or two, since this was just a test run. But I kept forgetting about it/making other things and I only just got around to cooking it back up the other night. If I had known I wouldn't be eating it for a couple weeks I would have stored it better than just a ziplock bag, but oh well.

Here it is after a couple weeks of sitting in a bag:

the dehydrating process added some browning, but it seems to have browned even further while in storage

CLOSE UP ACTION SHOT

Now, the dehydrating was totally the easy part. Here comes the experimental part. Because while I had this vision in my head of the cauliflower flakes acting exactly like instant mashed potatoes, my more realistic side forced me to acknowledge that probably was not going to be the case. But I forged ahead with a simple rehydration/cooking process.

added approximately 2 cups boiling water

covered with plastic wrap and let sit a few minutes

seems rehydrated? and hot enough? tasting confirms it has retained the cauliflower taste

mixed in a chunk of butter, some seasonings.

annnnnnd plated!

Texture-wise, it ended up like slightly lumpy mashed potatoes. Chris doesn't enjoy the usual watery result of fresh mashed cauliflower, so he liked this drier/lumpier version. But I imagine it could be thinned out with more water, or milk/cream to adjust for individual tastes.

Flavor-wise, it tasted just like mashed cauliflower as usual. With butter and salt, it was a yummy addition to the plate.

Eye-appeal wise, I have to admit the browning was slightly off-putting. But I think after a few more times of making and eating it I'd get over it. It's just cosmetic, as I detected no off flavors. Or, there might be some way to prevent it. Perhaps I had my dehydrator temperature up too high, even at the low temp I set it at. I'll have to look into that possibility. I think the slight browning would matter less if this were to be mixed with something (like diced veggies/meats) and formed into cauliflower patties, cooked on the stove. That sounds good actually, now that I think about it, hah.

All in all, I think this was a fairly successful first attempt. Now I know it can definitely be done, at least! I might try some more fine-tuning of the technique before attempting large-scale production. I must zero in on my dream of instant mashed cauliflower!

my totally epic flaxseed cracker post

I have recently gotten SUPER into flaxseed crackers. I was buying some from the store - Flackers, by Doctor in the Kitchen - and I loved them. But gosh, they're pricey, at $6 for a mere 5 ounces. (Basically around ~20 crackers.) I was like, surely I could make them myself?

I enlisted the SO, Chris, for help, and after searching the internet, we came across this recipe. The end product looked very much like what I was aspiring to, but I didn't like the addition of the pureed tomatoes. I compared the recipe versus what was in the ingredient list for the Flackers, and decided to try a very basic version, which was equal parts flaxseed and water, and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Otherwise, I followed the instructions at the link.

I did a small test batch first, and they came out PERFECTLY. For some reason I never got a picture of that first batch (for shame). But believe me, they came out looking JUST like the Flackers. Test successful, I launched on a campaign to make a big batch of my very own Flackers, with a variety of flavors.

Golden flaxseed, bought in bulk from Whole Foods. $2.49/lb

First, flaxseed. We calculated that 1.5 cups of flaxseed in this recipe would just fill one tray of my dehydrator. I decided to make 4 different flavors, and so measured out four portions. I added 1.5 cups of water to each, and .75 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar (sticking to the ratio as set out in the above-linked recipe).

such flax.. very mix.. wow

Then I let it sit for about 20 minutes. The flax will absorb the water and become a sticky, gelatinous blob.

Blob status achieved.

This is when I mixed in the flavorings. I wanted garlic rosemary, for sure, as well as onion. Chris had designs on the other flavors, one being tomato basil, and the other chipotle.

dehydrated onion

dehydrated tomato

The onions and tomatoes were ones we had previously dehydrated. We gathered fresh basil and rosemary from the plants in our garden. The chipotle came from a bottle of chipotle seasoning stuff.. that one was mostly an experiment.

top, l-r: onion, tomato and basil. bottom, l-r: chipotle flavor paste, rosemary and garlic powder

Dashes of salt were added to everything as well, and mixed thoroughly.

mix mix mix

Then, the spreading began!

plopped onto a paraflexx sheet (plastic wrap also works fine)

spreading with just the back of a spoon

tadaaaa. remember this is 1.5 cups of flaxseed

close up on the flaxy loveliness

Spreading the mixture takes a bit of finesse because it will easily be ripped apart if you're rough. But on the upside, it's SO sticky that it is easy to patch holes back over. Then I dehydrated for a couple hours at about 135 to get the first bout of wetness out, and lowered it to around 105 for the rest of the time.

trays loaded

After a couple hours, when the tops of the crackers had a slight crust to them (but were still plenty gooey underneath), I took them out and scored out the cracker shapes.

I just used the side of a silicon spatula.

all scored

I scored each tray as 8 x 8 rows of crackers, so I came up with 64 crackers on each tray. Also at this stage, I sprinkled a dusting of kosher salt along the tops of all the crackers. (I like when my crackers have grains of salt on them, but this is optional.)  Then loaded the trays back in to complete dehydration!

Three of the crackers, the tomato basil, onion, and rosemary garlic, all fully dehydrated in about 24 hours. The chipotle ones however took an additional 24 hours after that. I wouldn't use that flavoring mix again because a) too wet, b) too many fats in the condiment that could potentially go rancid, and c) didn't actually like the flavor that much. However I view a 75% success rate as pretty good.

Once finished, came the fun part - breaking them all apart into crackers!

breaking & testing the undersides for doneness

some finished crackers

I need to get some better storage

I packed them all up into various tuperwares, and ended up with a total of 256 crackers. Here's a breakdown of costs:

~3 pounds of flax @ $2.49/lb = $7.47
3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar @ $5 for a gallon = $.06
1 onion = $.25
3 roma tomatoes = $1
spices, salt = $.50
fresh rosemary and basil from my garden = $0
electricity to run the dehydrator for two days = ~$3 (rounding up)

total cost: $12.28
cost per ounce: $0.26

The boxes of Doctor in the Kitchen Flackers had approximately 20 flackers in them, when I counted. An entire box is 5 oz of crackers, which comes out to about $1.20/ounce. So by making them myself, I am making a hell of a savings! The boxed Flackers of course have convenience on their side, but by doing huge batches at once, I spend a few hours of effort (most of the work is done in the dehydrator, after all) on a couple days and then I have crackers for weeks. Sounds like a good trade off to me.

And this was only with 4 trays. Next time I'll go for broke and do a full 9 trays!