Pita Bread

I know, this is a bread blog, right? And yesterday I shared a recipe for pickled jalapeños... what is this girl doing?

Well, it is all very methodical, because for dinner we had pitas - with homemade whole wheat garlic pita bread, falafel, veggies, feta cheese AND - pickled jalapeños! I mean, a woman cannot live on bread alone.

To make your own pitas at home all you have to do is follow is a simple bread recipe, roll them out like you are making a pizza, bake, slice down the middle and stuff with loads of yummy stuff!

Ingredients for Whole Wheat Garlic Pita Bread mostly from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian 
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups warm water
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp yeast
2 tsp sea salt
2 tsp garlic powder (double if using fresh)
1/2 tsp sugar

Mix the yeast, sugar, olive oil, garlic powder and salt in a bowl, and add the warm water. Let sit for a couple minutes.

Then add in the flour all at once and knead until elastic. Roll into a ball and leave to rise for a couple hours.

It never fails to amaze me - look at how much it rose! 

Divide the dough into 6 pieces and roll them into balls. I left my dough to rise for closer to 3 hours, and it was a bit dry, so as I was rolling them I did so with wet hands.

Roll them out into rounds, no thinner than 1/4 inch in thickness. Let rest for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 400 F.

If you are using a baking stone, dust a pizza peel with flour and place 2 or 3 pitas on it, depending on how they will fit onto the stone. If you don't have baking stone, you can use a lightly oiled cookie sheet. Bake them for about 5-7 minutes on each side.

Then you have beautiful pita bread! 

Let them cool, and slice them down the middle about halfway, using the tip of the knife to carefully carve out the remaining half of the pita.

Then fry up some falafel. 

Slather homemade hummus on one side (coming tomorrow!) and begin stuffing with falafel. 

And cheese, and veggies, and those crunchy pickled jalapeños!

Then top with some fantastic dressing! I bought this months ago, probably before Christmas, and completely forgot about it until I found it while spring cleaning the kitchen. It's SO good. 

All in all, an extremely satisfying meal. 

And today, for about one GLORIOUS hour, we has this: 

SUN!!!!! Short-lived, but beautiful. 

Not so satisfying: Well, now I'm sick as well. I suppose when you live with someone, and share a bed, and a bathroom, and a car... it was bound to happen. I am slamming back the orange juice, putting away the Airborne, and sipping on hot tea... Hopefully it will pass quickly!