If you don’t mind spending about one half hour taking pita bread in and out of a hot oven, you can easily create some delicious, homemade pita. This recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey’s World of the East Vegetarian Cooking.
Recipe for Pita Bread
Ingredients
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. olive oil
Mix the flour and salt in a warmed bowl. Make a depression in the flour.
Combine yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup lukewarm water (make sure it’s not hot anymore) in a small cup. Mix and set aside for 5 to 6 minutes. I wait until the yeast gets frothy. Pour the yeast mixture, 1 cup lukewarm water and olive oil into the depression. Gently form a ball and add more water if you need it. You will probably need another 3 tablespoons. Once you have a ball, knead it for 10 minutes or until smooth. (Leora’s comment: or use a mixer like the Kitchen Aid with dough hook). Put the ball in a bowl and cover with damp cloth for about 2 hours.
When it has doubled in bulk, punch the dough down and knead until smooth. With surface dusted with flour, roll out the dough and cut into 12 equal parts. Roll each into 1/4 inch rounds and lay these on baking sheets that are lightly dusted with flour. Cover with dishcloth and let them rise for about 45 minutes.
While the pitas are rising, preheat your oven to “broil.” Put a cast-iron skillet or griddle on the bottom of the oven if it’s gas or the middle if your oven is electric (I used at large stainless steel skillet). Allow to heat. Put one or two pitas, depending on size of skillet and immediately return the skillet to the oven. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes. The breads will puff up. I then flip the breads (not part of the original recipe). You can also toast if you want the tops to brown. Wrap in damp dish towel to cool them down.
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Note: like the Children of Israel coming out of Israel, I didn’t have enough time to allow the dough to rise in the pita bread in the photo. Hey, the pita still came out OK!
Fox standing in the ruins… too much color. I copy the layer, desaturate, make it a revealing mask, highlight the fox, select the inverse, and allow all color to come through for the fox but not for the rest of the painting.
Now the fox stands out in the grayed background.
The story:
Shortly after the destruction of the second temple, a group of rabbis went to visit Jerusalem or what was left of it after the Roman conquest. When they saw the destruction, they ripped their clothes in mourning. On getting closer, they saw a fox coming out from the site of the holiest part of the Temple. This was too much for the rabbis. They all broke out crying. Rabbi Akiva, however, started to laugh. “Why are you laughing?” they asked, in amazement. He replied: “now that the destruction prophecy of Micha has been fulfilled, we may look forward to the prophecy of Zecharia that Jerusalem and the temple will be rebuilt!”
Mrs. S. adds: ‘The end of the story is that the other rabbis said in response, “Akiva, you have comforted us; Akiva, you have comforted us.”‘ (thank you, Mrs. S.)
If I have time tomorrow, I’m going to put up a post telling the story of Rabbi Akiva and the fox with cartoon bubbles – update: no time this morning and no energy this afternoon – I’ll aim for next summer.
Last week my daughter, her friend and I went to the Princeton Art Museum. The museum is in the middle of the Princeton University campus, and it features Roman, Greek, European, modern and American art in its collection. The museum offered scavenger hunts for inquisitive children like my own, and the girls chose between Roman, Greek or American portraiture. We first went to the Roman room. After a few minutes of looking at mosaics and busts of people dead for about 2000 years, the girls declared the collection “creepy,” and we went back upstairs to try the American scavenger hunt.
The section with the American paintings was more appealing to them.
The life-size portrait of Elizabeth Allen Marquand, 1887 by John Singer Sargent is more captivating in real life. I would probably sit for hours and draw her, if I had the chance.
After a few minutes of doing the scavenger hunt, my daughter and her friend decided to use the backs of the hunt papers to draw a distinguished family from the 18th century, The Hartley Family with lovely silk dresses.
There’s sculpture and architecture to be seen outside the museum, on the Princeton campus, but I’ll save the architecture for another post. The statue is of John Witherspoon, 6th president of Princeton and a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.
Little Mermaid and Ursula the 14-headed Sea Witch
Last week my daughter (see green arrow) was one of the 14 heads of Ursula the sea witch in the Middlesex Theater Camp production of the Little Mermaid. The main mermaid was played by a teen who went to school with my middle son, so we “sort of” knew her (at least my daughter and middle son know her). Tomorrow is the final production of my daughter’s summer; they are putting on Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. My daughter is one of Veruca Salt’s sisters. She needs to act snotty and rich and put on a British accent. Veruca is played by our friend’s daughter, so that’s exciting, too.
On My Blog
I intended to post some photos of our trip to Princeton, New Jersey, but that didn’t happen this week. So coming up… at least a post or two about architecture and art in Princeton.
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
If you like beautiful scenery, if you like finding out what an adventurous young woman with a degree in English literature is doing, if you want to find out what a young Jewish woman will do in a Scandinavian country, if you have any interest in Norway, you might want to follow this blog: Nestled Between the Mountains and a Fjord. Disclosure: author is related to me.
Mrs. S. teaches how to make waffles. I’ve never made waffles, unless you count taking one out of a box in the freezer and sticking it in the toaster oven.
