Pita Bread and New Year's Resolutions

A little while ago Ryan posted his New Year’s resolutions and challenged us to post ours. One of ours (did I say ours I really meant to say mine, I just include Matt to be polite) is to eat healthier. Consequently this month I have tried some new recipes and thought you might be interested in them.

The first one is for Pita Bread. Now I have heard from several people that pita bread is easy but I have never tried it before. This recipe was pretty straightforward. I must admit that I cheated and dumped everything in the bread maker and put it on the dough cycle. It worked great. But I am sure that if you follow the directions and do it in a mixer then it will be equally successful. One warning the dough is pretty thick so be gentle with you mixer. This turned out GREAT I was very surprised. It even has pockets in the middle. One thing I would recommend is to use parchment or Pam (I was sadly out of both and they stuck a little bit). We had these with Falafel, which I thought was awesome but the family was not so sure about. I added to much parsley to it and it turned the inside green, I thought it was kind of like eating Martians but the family did not appreciate my humor.

Pita Bread

Recipe from Familyfun.com


Think of all the things you can use this for: hummus, paninis, wraps, quesadillas, and the list goes on and on.

1 tbsp. active dry yeast 2 cups warm water 1 tbsp. honey 2 tsp. salt 6 cups flour

Step 1
Dissolve the yeast in the water and stir in the honey. Add the salt and then the flour, 1 cup at a time. Stir until you can't mix the dough anymore. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured countertop. Knead for 10 minutes, or until the dough is elastic.

Step 2
Place the dough in a buttered bowl, turn to coat all sides, and cover with a damp cloth or plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until it is doubled in size, about 2 hours. Punch it down and roll into 10 balls. Let the balls rest for 15 minutes, then shape them into 7 inch rounds.

Step 3
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and bake the rounds on a cookie sheet set on the lowest rack in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes. This pita will be thicker than the ones you find at the grocery store. Wrap them in a cloth napkin until ready to serve. Makes 10 rounds.