cook: mezze meal with homemade pita

Baba ghanoush and hummus done.  Took an hour to boil the soaked garbanzo beans and broil the eggplants. While both beans and vegetables were cooking, I had crushed 6 garlic cloves in my mortar and pestle and had squeezed 1 Meyer lemon into the bowl of mashed garlic to soak. Another 30 minutes to purée the chickpeas with garlic and lemon juice and tahini as well as cumin and harissa and then peel and chop the eggplant and combine with said lemon juice and garlic and tahini. They looked very humble in their Pyrex serving bowls, but were honest to gosh delicious. Cecilia said best yet, to which I replied she always says that. However, it was true. I don’t measure ingredients for hummus or baba ghanoush, but just add and adjust to taste, usually needing forgotten salt or just a few more sprinkles.

I normally buy pita bread whenever I cook hummus and baba ghanoush, but I’d been seeing TikToks of people making their own with the ingredient of yogurt added to the flour dough. Yogurt?!? Huh. Let me try that.

And lately I’ve been buying whole milk yogurt to eat with berries or I make tzatziki with Greek yogurt as an additional cucumber dip for my Mediterranean meals and decided to give the recipe for pitas I copied from Milk Street a go.            

And I borrowed the bread flour and whole wheat flour (which was actually a finely milled whole wheat flour for chapati) from my neighbors, Cecilia and Madhu.                               

I could not, however, access the recipes for the flavored butters behind the paywall, but no matter, I'll find those recipes elsewhere. The directions for the bread were simple and straightforward.                   

I did also luckily have the 12” cast iron skillet, but my 10" cast iron pan would have worked too.                           

As I said earlier, I couldn’t access the garlic herb butter recipe, but I’m seeing herbs galore in the picture. And so the plan next time is to chop parsley, dill, thyme and marjoram and add harissa to garlic and butter to slather on the pitas.

Okay here are pics from last night’s stovetop baking.            

 

Oh my gosh, freshly "baked" pita is so much better than the dry disks in a bag that I buy at a store. And I can’t go back to those tasteless rounds when fresh pita has such a superior texture and taste. Oh! And my mezze plate that I also made for neighbors: hummus, baba ghanoush, roasted red bell pepper, cucumber and cherry tomatoes drizzled with Greek yogurt and dill, feta cheese, and zhoug. If I throw a party, then it'll be a loaded hummus with all the above ingredients but sauces on the side as well as kalamata and Castelvetrano olives.