Best Pita and Flatbread

Do you like Middle Eastern food? Not too long ago I really disliked it and would turn up my nose at the hummus my mom was always eating. I could never figure out why the Snyder side of my family ate Middle Eastern food all the time. Turns out my great-uncle is Lebanese. That would explain a few things. I have really developed a taste for hummus, kibbeh, tabbouleh and many other traditional Middle Eastern foods. It's especially fun now since much of what Ella and I are studying in history focuses mainly on the Middle East and so as a project for history we make foods they used to eat and still do to this day. Of course, you couldn't have hummus without pita, right? Well, I finally found my favorite recipe and coincidently this same recipe makes delicious flatbread; you just have to cook it differently than pita.

1T active dry yeast

1 T sugar or honey

1 1/2 cups warm water

2 t salt

4 cups flour

1 T olive oil

Combine 1/2 cup of the water with the sugar or honey and yeast, whisk and let stand for 10 minutes. Dissolve the salt in the remaining 1 cup of water. Add the salt water and flour to the yeast slurry. Mix it up and then dump it out onto your counter and knead for about 10 minutes or so. Put the dough back in your bowl and add the olive oil. Knead the dough until the olive oil in well incorporated into the dough. Put the bowl with the dough into your oven which is OFF and set your timer for 90 minutes.

After your timer goes off your dough should look like this.

Take the dough out of the oven and punch it down. Divide the dough into twelve portions and put them into neat little balls like this.

FOR PITA:

Preheat your oven to 425. Roll out your dough and put the dough discs on a lightly oiled (spray is fine) cookie sheet. Put them in your oven on the lowest rack for about 8-10 minutes. When they are puffed up like this take them out of the oven. They should not be brown yet.
Heat a pan on your stove to medium. Coat lightly with oil or spray oil and put the pita in for about 45 seconds to 1 minute and then turn. You just want to brown the outside a little bit. When you cut them in half the pita pocket shows up.

FOR FLATBREAD:

Heat a pan on your stove over medium heat. Coat lightly with oil or spray oil. Roll out each ball of dough so you get a disc and cook the discs in the pan for about 2-3 minutes per side. When it gets bubbly then you know to flip it over.

That's it. Easy, fast (for bread), yummy and super versatile!