I Made Pita!!!!

Hey guys,

Two super exciting things happened in the past 24 hours.  1 - I officially applied to medical school!  2 - I made my own pita bread and it is delicious!  Both of these made me happy.

It looks beautiful and it looks like pita!

So I got this recipe from a blog called The Kitchn.  As always I will post a link to the original post at the bottom of this one.

This is seriously the easiest recipe.  All it takes is a little bit of time, mostly spent waiting for the dough to rise.  There are 5 ingredients.  That's it!

It involves 1 cup warm water (not pictured), 2.5-3 cups of flour, 1 packet yeast, 2 tsps. salt and 1-2 tsps. olive oil (the oil is optional, but I did choose to add it).

Caveat: when I first started making this recipe I totally forgot to take pictures for the blog!  So until the dough is formed, there are no pics.  My bad, super sorry.

First I added the yeast to the water, mixed, and let sit for 5 minutes.  Then I added the flour, salt, and olive oil to the mixture and formed into a dough.  It is pretty piece-y at first, but it will form into a nice dough with kneading.  I then put the dough onto a floured counter and kneaded for about 6 minutes.

I covered this with a towel,

and let sit for about an hour and 40 minutes.  The recipe said 1-2 hours, I compromised when I thought the dough was huge!

This then got lightly punched down to let the air out and split into 8, sort of even sections.  I did this by splitting the dough roughly in half, then again, then again until I had 8 pieces.

I rolled these out into thinner discs, pretty much until I couldn't get it too much thinner.  I do not have a rolling pin, so I used a Morton's salt container.  Worked well!

These were put in different batches on a baking sheet that had been warmed in a 450 degree oven.

I baked each batch for 3 minutes and viola!

Wow!

So now I have pita!  It is amazing and delicious.  I don't have any hummus on hand, so I tried some dipped in olive oil with spices.  Yummy!!!

My fantastic pile of pita!

So as you may be able to tell, I am super proud of myself.  Almost as proud as when I made bagels.  But not quite.

Here is the link to the awesome blog this came from: http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-homemade-pita-bread-90844  Just ignored how much more professional their pictures look!

Not sure what I am going to cook/bake next, but I will keep you posted.

As always, thanks for reading!

-Liz

Felt Like Baking: Blueberry Oatmeal Bread - Yum!

Tonight I just felt like baking and I wanted something with fruit since it is that season.  I found this recipe online at a blog called Go Bold with Butter.  It turned out wonderfully, I am super pleased.

I won't spell out the exact amounts for all the ingredients here.  Instead there is a link to the original posting at the bottom of this one.  As you can see below, it includes everything you could expect plus blueberries, oats, and plain Greek yogurt.

 The butter has to be melted and then allowed to cool, so I did this step first.  I melted it for a total of 40 seconds in the microwave, although in two increments of 20 seconds each.

The next step I have never done before.  This recipe says to coat the blueberries in flour so that they don't sink to the bottom while baking.  Had never heard of this, but they didn't sink so I guess it worked!

Next you mix all of the dry ingredients except the oats.  This includes flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In a separate bowl the wet ingredients get mixed together as well.  This is the yogurt, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla.

Add the two together by folding (a technique I only knew how to do thanks to master baker Momma) until just mixed.

Then add in the blueberries and the oats.  I found this step a little tricky.  You want to get everything as mixed as possible while still being cautious and gentle so as to not break any of the blueberries.  I ended up doing this successfully, but it was slightly difficult!

This gets "poured" into a greased and floured 9 by 5 pan.  I put poured in quotation marks because this is a very thick and sticky batter.  It looks much more like cookie dough then cake batter or brownie batter.  So I basically scooped the batter in and then smooshed it into place, trying to make it as even as possible all over the pan.

Bake for 50-55 minutes and all done!  It looked a little more done on the outside than I expected, but when I checked it earlier it was definitely not done in the center.

After five minutes of cooling in the pan, the bread got removed and put onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.

After allowing it to get cool enough to touch, I had to cut off a slice.  And then another.  It was delicious!  Really, really good.  This was a totally new recipe for me and I am super happy with how well it ended up turning out.

Luckily it made a decent size loaf so I will be eating and sharing this for at least the next few days!

Here is the link for the original recipe in case you want to make this delicious bread: http://goboldwithbutter.com/?p=3004

Three posts in two days!  I am definitely on a roll now.  No plans to post tomorrow so I will be breaking my streak, but I will be back this weekend or next week to post again.

Until next time, thanks for reading,
Liz

"Paste Agliolio" also known as Pasta with Broccoli, Garlic, and Oil

Ever since I was young one of my favorite meals as been what my family calls pasta agliolio.  Basically broccoli sauteed in garlic and oil tossed with spaghetti or angel hair.  Yum!

The ingredients are pretty simple.  Broccoli, garlic (I used two cloves), olive oil, and pasta.  I used whole grain spaghetti.

 First cut the broccoli into roughly bite size pieces.  Simple.

Then steam the broccoli however you like.  There are multiple ways to do this.  I brought about a quarter of an inch of water to a boil in a pan, put the broccoli in, covered, and steamed for three minutes.  That is all it takes.

While that is steaming, mince up some garlic, however many cloves you would like.  Then add this to a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a pan on low-medium heat.

By the way, the pasta should be boiling at the same time.  The most complicated part of this dish is balancing  the timing so that everything is ready to be combined at about the same time.

When the broccoli is done, drain, and then add it to the garlic and oil pan.  Toss evenly and sautee for a few minutes.

Drain the pasta of course.

Put all of the parts into a bowl together and toss completely to combine and coat the pasta in the oil, garlic, and broccoli.

Delish!

Dish some out for yourself, add a glass of milk, and enjoy!

I am super proud of myself that I have now blogged two nights in a row!  Go me!  Hopefully I can keep this up.

As always, thanks for reading,
Liz

A Simple Staple and the Garden!!!

Sorry it has been awhile everyone.  I have been super busy with applying to medical school and getting to take a long-needed trip home a couple weeks ago.  But I am back and going to try super hard to stay on top of the blog now!

So to start off, my garden has gotten huge!  It has been a little over a month since planting and everything is growing like mad.

So much green!

Being newbies at all this, Robert and I didn't really calculate how much space all the different plants would need so now they are all overlapping and loving each other.  We have tomatoes which are super tall now,

squash which are totally taking over and have already blossomed,

pepper plants which are the smallest of the bunch,

cucumbers which are vining and attaching to everything from other plants to the meshing surrounding the boxes,

and lots of herbs including basil, rosemary, thyme, and a huge cilantro plant.

Everything is going great!  It is a learning process of course, but I cannot wait until there are fresh vegetables to eat.  The only problem I have had so far I discovered just today.  Two of the boxes are surrounded by meshing so no pests, but three little side boxes are not.  The bunny got into the lettuce!

Oh well, the lettuce crops were pretty much done anyway!  Just have to keep a closer eye on everything as the vegetables begin to pop up.

Now on to the cooking.  Tonight I just felt like a simple and delicious staple, grilled ham and cheese!  A recipe is not really needed, but I will type out the gist of one anyway.

To start you need the obvious.  Cheese (I prefer American), ham (I used Boar's Head Maple Honey Ham), bread (whatever you have on hand), and a little butter or margarine.

So I can never get through a whole loaf of bread before it goes bad.  Thus I keep my bread in the freezer.  My first step was to thaw the bread for 15 seconds in the microwave.  Easy.  Then I spread a little margarine on one side of both slices.  This gives it the toasty brown look.

I put one piece butter-side down in the pan that I had already let warm up a little bit on medium-low heat.  I then layered three slices of cheese on top of that.  This is the most important technique for even cheese layerage.  First put one slice down from the left edge to the middle.  Then the second slice from the right edge to the middle.  They should overlap in the middle.  Finally take the third slice and tear it in half.  Take one half and put it on the left of the overlapped middle and one on the right.  Now there are two perfect layers of cheese.

The ham requires no such technique.  Just slap it on there flat.

Finish with the second slice of bread, butter side up.

I let mine go a little more than I like it so this is darker than I would usually cook it.  No exact science to this part, just about your preference.

Do the same on the other side and bam, amazing.  Look how beautifully melted this cheese is!

Finish with a glass of chocolate milk and viola, delicious meal!

So once again, I apologize for neglecting the blog so much.  But I am back in business!  Look for the next post as soon as tomorrow night!

Thanks for reading, 

Liz