Dinner Diaries

Pita Bread

I used yeast without the bread maker! (happy dance, happy dance). Several years ago at Easter I made some hockey pucks that were supposed to be yeast rolls. That day I denounced yeast and decided to let the professionals do my bread baking. But then I discovered the joys of the bread maker. That silly little machine with it's tiny plastic arm turned my yeast into an edible and wonderful thing. I've had many yeasty friends encourage me with recipes of how to manage yeast without the machine but it's always included a Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook. I don't have a dough hook. Or Kitchen Aid mixer for that matter.
This past weekend I got to spend time with a friend who is yeast talented. I lamented my lack of dough hook and she shared that she didn't have one either. She uses....get this...her hands! You know...those things that women have been using since biblical times to make bread? Amazing. I knew this was an option, but who has 3 hours to knead bread by hand? Nope. She tells me that her Julia Child book tells her that bread only be kneaded 50 times before rising. That's it. 50.

So last night I was inspired by a friend's facebook post. She said she was having fajita pitas for dinner. That sounded reallly good. I had all the ingredients on hand except for the pitas. My bread maker did not have a pita setting. But google told me how to make them by hand. So I tried it...and it worked!

I am a changed woman.

Here is the recipe I used. It says knead for 10-15 minutes, but I stuck to 50 times just like Juila recommends.

Instead of trying to open the pita (I totally could have, they had a perfect little pocket on the inside) we just ate them with fajita type things on top and folded like a taco. See the puffy goodness on the bottom? No hockey pucks here - hooray!