Rosie Makes Pita Bread.

The other day I made a delicious bean salad,
which in turn led me to make tahini and hummus,
 which in turn led me to think about making my own pita bread.
I know, it's scary how my mind works.

My ingredients:
3 cups Prairie Gold whole wheat flour
 (+ a bit more - maybe 1/4 cup- for kneading)
 ( I found the flour on one of my trips to Yoders Market in Yanceyville, NC.)
 2 tsp salt
1 pkg yeast
2 TB olive oil
1 1/2 cups water

I mixed all the ingredients together.

I turned the dough out onto a lightly floured board
and started kneading,
 using just sprinklings of the reserved flour as needed.

Here's my dough after about 10 minutes of kneading.

I covered the dough and let it rest for about 20 minutes.
 And lookie ... it's spread out.
 Then I kneaded for about 10 more minutes
adding a sprinkling of flour as needed.
This is a sticky dough.

I turned the dough into my oiled bowl,
covered in plastic wrap, and put it into the refrigerator.

For the first four hours,
 I checked the dough every hour and pressed it down.
 Then I just left it alone for 2 days in the fridge.
Supposedly the long rise develops the flavor.

Two days later, I'm ready to make pita bread
. I go to get my dough out and find that Mr. Hawthorne
 has placed heavy tupperware containers on top of my dough.
Thank you, Mr. Hawthorne.

I let it come to room temperature
and did my trick of nuking a wet towel,
 then wrapping it around the bread,
and letting the heat and the steam do its magic in the microwave.

As I said, the dough is very sticky.

I divided the dough into 12 little balls ...

... then rolled each one out into a disk,
about 1/4 inch thick, covered with plastic,
and let rest for about 20 minutes.

And here are my little disks.

I ended up rolling the disks back into balls, and flattening with my hand and letting them rest again.

I preheated my oven, with a pizza stone in it, to 500 degrees. About 2 minutes before baking an individual pita,
 I spritzed it with water, as the dough will not puff if there's not enough moisture.
 You could knead the extra water in,
but spritzing is a lot easier.
Then I cracked salt over top and
 placed the dough on the 500 degree pizza stone (or cast iron skillet)
and baked for 4 minutes.

Ugh. My first attempt.
This is what the un-spritzed pita looked like.
 I'm not feeling the love here.

Second attempt.
 Pita takes some work.
 And a little practice.

Not quite there yet.

Now, I'm getting somewhere.

I'm starting to feel the love.

WHOOT, indeedy!

I'll do better next time.

Not too shabby for my first attempt.
 Next time, I'll press them out a bit thicker,
maybe even add some all-purpose flour,
 and I think I'll have perfect pita.