Homemade Pita Bread!

First Thing First... in case you're one of my regular readers...(the best i can tell there are atleast 2 of you out there!) and you're here to find out if i've delivered a bouncing baby yet... the answer is no. We are still waiting on little blessing number two to arrive... and I suppose I am learning patience.

Now for my frugal friday post.

I bake most of my own breads and baked goods because I just can't get over how much the grocery store charges for stuff that is mostly flour and water. Even if you don't already do alot of baking, these are easy, delicious, and cheap.

Warning: once you've tried these delicious and moist pitas, you won't want to buy the dry icky grocery store ones ever again.

Yummy Homemade Pitas

1 cup of warm water
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
up to 2 1/2 cups white flour
olive oil

1. Place water in a bowl and sprinkle with yeast. Let yeast dissolve.
2. Add honey, salt and whole wheat flour. Stir.
3. Add enough white flour that dough is no longer particularly sticky. knead until smooth.
4.rub dough with a small amount of oil and let rise for approximately one hour
5. Beat down dough. Divide into six peices and roll out into circles. Let rise again, about 30 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 500 degres. Brush one side of each circle with a small amount of olive oil and place, oil side down, on baking sheets. Bake for 6-8 minutes. As they bake, you'll be able to see them puffing up and forming the "pockets".

7. Now here is the important part: If you just let the pitas cool on a cooling rack they will be tough and crispy and not all great. What you do to make them soft and marvelous is wrap them in a slightly dampened dish cloth, and then wrap that in a few pieces of newspaper. Let them sit, wrapped up, for about 15 minutes. Then cut in half, stuff with something yummy, and enjoy.

I like to use the quick rising yeast so that i can make these in half the time. I've also been using the Kitchen Aid stand mixer that my wonderful hubby blessed me with at Christmas to knead them up...if you have one go ahead and use it for this recipe (and, um....practically anything and everything else. Yay Kitchen Aid!)

We like to fill ours with BBQ chicken breast, mozzarella cheese and red onions (all purchased on sale, of course!) Sometimes we add rice, bacon, grilled red pepper, or anything else that strikes our fancy. If you know of any especially yummy pita fillings, I'd love to know about them!