Kapora's Journey: A Bubba Approved Recipe: Homemade Pita Bread and Hummus

I hate buying pita bread at the grocery store. First off I can never find it at my store. It isn't in the bread aisle or the bakery but sometimes in an obscure corner of the deli section. I believe this is the very reason that every time I buy pita bread at the grocery store, it is stale. No one else can find it either!

No more stale pita bread for me, my friends! I found a recipe for pita bread on Pinterest. And it is easy, and SO good! Especially with homemade hummus.

Here's what you'll need for the pita bread:

1 packet of dry yeast (or about a tablespoon if you have the larger jar of it)

1 1/4 cups of warm water

1 teaspoon of salt

4 cups of flour

First put the warm water into the bowl of your mixer with the dough hook attachment on. Add the dry yeast, and let sit for about 5 minutes.

Add the salt and the flour a little at a time mixing a little as you go. Once it is all in there, run the mixer for about 5 minutes or so till it is mostly blended and looks kind of rough like this:

Take the dough out of the mixer and knead on a lightly floured surface another 5 min or so until smooth and elastic. Add a little more flour as needed if it is too sticky.

Divide the dough up into smaller balls. I did 16 small pieces. It depends how small you want them. Since I used them for dipping in hummus these are a nice size, if you wanted sandwich size you may want to go with a little bigger balls. But this mini size would probably fit one falafel ball (recipe to come later) and make cute little appetizer (or Bubba sized) sandwiches.

Next roll the dough into balls and flatten out, then roll with a rolling pin till about 1/4 inch thick.

Let rest on a lightly floured surface for about 40 minutes. (This would be a perfect time to make the hummus.) After about 20 minutes or so preheat the oven to 425 for the pitas.

Here's what you'll need for the Hummus:

1 can chickpeas

3 cloves garlic

3 tablespoons lemon juice

2 tablespoons olive oil

¼ teaspoon basil

¼ teaspoon oregano

Rinse and drain the chickpeas.

Chop the garlic.

Add the chickpeas and chop a little.

Add the lemon juice, olive oil, basil and oregano.

Blend till creamy. Add to a bowl, cover it and let it sit in the fridge and "get happy".

By now it should be about 40 minutes. Did you preheat the oven to 425 for the pitas?

Flip the pitas with a spatula upside down onto a pan. Then pop them in the oven. After about 5 minutes or so they will start to puff up in the oven and really look like pitas. (Until this point the first time I made them I was still skeptical because they did barely any rising during that 40 minute rising period)