Bread - Pita

Pita Bread

A wonderful puffy round pillow of warm steamy tastiness.  There's not much better than fresh made pita bread right out of the hot hot oven.

That's the secret I've found - a hot HOT oven.  450 or 475 degrees.  Rolling to a not too thin thickness is also a good help.  Baking on a hot pizza stone probably doesn't hurt either ;-)  I use the basic boule bread recipe from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.  It's often already in my fridge just waiting for me to make pitas (or bread).

First, begin to heat your oven and pizza stone (or inverted cookie sheet) to 450 degrees.  Place a shallow metal pan in the bottom of the oven to heat as well.  Flour a cutting board or counter surface very well.  Take out a golf ball-sized piece of dough and fold the sides under and in to the bottom of the ball until the ball is smooth on top.  Flatten slightly with your hand on the well floured board and roll with a rolling pin until about 1/4-1/3 inch thick.  I've found about 1/4 inch thick works the best.

Once your oven is hot and you have at least 2 pitas rolled out, pour 1 cup warm-hot water in the extra metal pan to create steam.  Put your pitas on the stone and let them cook for about 7 minutes.  They should begin puffing about 3-4 minutes into the bake.

While those are cooking, start rolling the next couple.  2 fit well on my pizza stone.

Remove the baked pitas from the oven with tongs or spatula and put on a cooling rack.  Leave them puffy if you are eating right now, or let cool and gently press the poof to help squish out the hot air/steam and pack in plastic baggies to stay pliable for later.

Home made pitas don't store well - they're much better fresh.

Make up a batch of wonderful pita breads for your family - as a snack, lunch addition or just because they're fun.  Try them with kefir yogurt-cheese, jam, honey, butter and cinnamon, cheddar and swiss, chicken salad... possibilites are endless!

English Muffins

Got busy this morning and made some fresh English Muffins.  They're surprisingly easy to make.  Just take a batch of bread dough (I used my go-to everyday bread dough recipe from "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day") and took small balls (about golf ball-sized) of dough and placed them on a corn meal covered surface.  Sprinkled more corn meal on top and let them rise for 45 mins or so.

Once they're risen, heat up the oven and a cookie sheet or stone to 450 and heat up a skillet on medium (whatever's good for pancakes I've found works well for these too).  Cook English muffins for 4-5 minutes per side in the skillet until lightly browned.  Then put in the oven on your stone or cookie sheet and bake for 5 mins until cooked through.  Cool a bit and stick around the perimeter with a fork.  Pull apart, and enjoy - toasted or not!

These we enjoyed with home made soy nut butter and home made quick jam.  I'll post those recipes later on ;-)

Crackers!!

So, I've jumped into the realm of making crackers.  They're easier than I thought and I've already started making my own flavors.  Glad I took the plunge.  My kids love them too.

Here are the 2 recipes I've created:

"Battey Crackers"
(named by my daughter)

2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached white flour (plus more for dusting)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
8-10 grinds of black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil combined with
~3/4 cup water
sea salt for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 425 degrees

In your food processor, mince up the garlic.  Change to a dough blade if you have it and combine garlic, flours, baking powder, black pepper and salt.  Pulse until combined.

Pour in 1-2 Tbsp of the water/oil combination and pulse until all combined, continue in this manner until the dough forms a rough ball.

Dump the dough out on a floured board and kneed a bit until all a cohesive ball of dough.  Cut dough ball into 8 pieces.  Roll out each ball of dough, fold over in 3rds and roll again, then once more to help kneed a bit more.  After final folding, roll out to 1/8-1/16 of an inch (I use a pasta roller down to setting 4).  Place on baking sheet and sprinkle with sea salt and pat it into the dough.  Cut with a pizza cutter into cracker shapes.

Bake at 425 for 6 minutes, remove from oven, turn crackers over and cook for another 4-6 minutes until light golden brown.  Repeat with remaining dough.

Cool completely and store for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container (although mine have never lasted more than a week!)

Recipe #2
"Daddy Crackers"
(daddy needed some crackers for work - he hasn't had any yet - hope they last until he gets home!)

1 cup oatmeal
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 Tbsp olive oil combined with
~3/4 cup water

Grind the oatmeal in your food processor until it makes a nice oat flour with some bits of oats left for texture.  Then, follow the directions above to make these crackers.  Maybe rolling them a BIT thicker as these crackers are pretty thin when baked.

Yummy!

Bread Baking

I've been baking sourdough breads lately. Lots and lots of sourdough bread. I started my own starter by letting the starter develop it's own yeast and grab what it could out of the air. Neat process. Takes a bit of forethought in the baking as it has taken up to 17 hours for the dough to double in size. But I've found that now that the starter is older it doesn't take as long. This batch did what I wanted for doubling in about 4 hours! I think that's a record. The rolls I'm making currently are light and tasty - when I baked the first batch a 2nd batch was immediately requested because the first is awaiting a party... Lightly sweet with a soft texture.

I've also been experimenting with pasta. Made egg pasta spaghetti last night with an alfredo-style sauce with chicken and mushrooms. Quite tasty. The girls and I will be having it again for dinner tonight. Today I made ravioli style pasta for lunch. Stuffed with cottage cheese flavored with garlic, oregano and basil. It turned out too runny in the filling. I think it needs to be drier. But the pasta was lovely, light and tender. I'll toss some recipes up when I have a few more minutes. For now I'm getting ready for a b'day party this weekend. Little one is turning 1!!!

Bread Pudding

I was gifted (by my fantastic mom) a bread baker for Christmas, so here I am now baking bread - 4th loaf since Thursday (it's only Tuesday).  But I also had a mostly dud loaf and some that was in need of eating quickly, so I whipped up a batch of bread pudding.  Remember those eggs from the Co-op?  Yeah, I have a ton :-)  So here's the recipe I made up:

3/4 loaf of day-old hearty white bread (or wheat or whatever would work)
4-5 eggs, beaten
3 cups of milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 -1/2 cup sugar (I used a 1/4 cup)

Cut up the bread into cubes and spread evenly in a 8x8 pan (or the 6x9 works too).  In a separate bowl or large measuring cup (or your blender), mix together eggs, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and sugar.  Pour egg and milk mixture over the bread to coat well.  Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-45 minutes until the custard is set and is no longer runny.  It could take up to an hour depending on how much liquid the bread soaks up.

Let cool briefly and serve in bowls with milk or cream poured over the top.  Yum!  For an extra treat, sprinkle the top with sugar before baking for a sweet brown crispy top.

Baked French Toast and Variations

I belong to a food buying co-op and currently we have an abundance of eggs and bread - both of which we are getting more of tomorrow in our share.  So had to get a good recipe to use some of it up.  Here it is:

Baked French Toast
Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients

Loaf of Bread (any bread will do)
2-6 eggs (depending on how creamy you want it)
Milk (or combination of milk and eggnog) to make ~4 cups liquid
Cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, etc for tasty flavorings


Method
Beat together eggs, milk and flavorings of your choice.  I prefer cinnamon and vanilla.

Layer defrosted bread, with or without crusts, (I leave them on) in a 9x9 pan. 

Pour egg mixture over bread layers slowly.  You may have to wait until a bit soaks in before adding the whole 4 cups.  Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate over night.  Press down on the bread so it all gets into the egg mixture.


Bake 350 for 30-45 minutes until puffed up and baked through.  A knife inserted will come out clean.


Top with syrup, fruit topping (slicing apples, cinnamon, sugar and heating in water with some cornstarch to thicken), yogurt, etc.


Variations
Layer cottage cheese or ricotta cheese with the bread, not too much.  Makes a stuffed-type french toast.

Whisk plain, fruit, or vanilla yogurt in with the milk and eggs.