Thursday, July 19, 2007

A literal PITA pocket



Yesterday I made whole wheat pitas. Pita making, for those of you who haven't made pitas before, is a delicate process. A real pain in the ass, if you will. Make some pitas yourself and you will discover the little pocket bread's true namesake-- Pain In The Ass. This is why I only make them about once every 4-6 months and buy all my pitas until I have forgotten just how much trouble they are to make.

First you make the dough, knead it and rise it once. Then you must shape the pitas in perfect little circles (wand let them rise for 20 minutes. Next the oven has to be at the right temperature as well as the pan inside the oven. Then you must transfer the pitas to the hot pan inside the oven without disturbing the pitas so much that you cause the rise to fall. Then you watch in the oven window, praying and willing the pitas to "puff" and if you're lucky, maybe half of them will. Then you have to flip them halfway through cooking but only once you're certain the puffing is either finished or will never happen anyway. I also want to add that a non-puffed pita is not a waste of time, it just won't be a natural pocket you have to cut it open.

So out of yesterdays batch of 8 pitas only two rose to the occasion. And of course, being the blogger that I am, I took pictures. (You can see on left rear pita where Nathan got ahold of it and took a chunk out with his hand, yeah.. that doesn't help the whole rising and puffing process.)

So.. intelligent girl that I am, I uploaded the wrong picture. I am on dial up so I'm not going to let my precious uploading time go to waste and I'm leaving this picture up for your viewing pleasure. My little bookworms... awwwww! <3

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