Homemade Pita Bread

I wanted to do something new and challenge myself while treating my dear friends and family to a home cooked Mediterranean meal. I've eaten my fair share of Mediterranean cuisine from restaurants and from authentic home cooks and loved it ALL! This was my first attempt to make it at home.

The entire meal consisted of herb marinated chicken kabobs cooked on the grill. We dipped our pita bread in hummus, and baba ghannouj (eggplant dip). We drizzled garlic-yogurt sauce over our rice and had a tomato feta salad on the side. It was all very good and I was glad to have had the food blogosphere to get me through it.

I've never minced SO much garlic in all my LIFE! Because this was a new experience, I prepared each item one at a time. That made it take it awhile. Next time, I'll know to mince ALL the garlic and herbs I'll need for every dish before I assemble them.

TO MAKE THE PITA BREAD I followed this successful Pita Bread recipe exactly. About half of the bread puffed as it was suppose to and the other half didn't. It was hit and miss. In the moment of eating, it all tasted WONDERFUL and it didn't seem to matter.

Laid right on a pizza stone in a HOT 450F degree oven.

.

3 minutes later.

Even from this second photo, you can see the pita in front puffed up GREAT. The one in back just bubbled up. Both tasted awesome!

Since writing this post, I have made pita bread several times.  I have learned to use this recipe to make dinner rolls, pizza crust and pita chips.

To make pita chips, simply re-heat them on the pizza stone for 2-3 minutes.  Cut up with a pizza cutter.

Garlic Yogurt Sauce

This creamy goodness should be a staple in everyone's frig, especially if they LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, garlic.

I found this recipe at A Mingling of Tastes underneath the Herb Marinated Lamb Kabobs recipe.

HERE'S ALL IT IS

• 1 cup of plain fat free yogurt
• 2 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 to 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine all the ingredients and refrigerate until ready to eat. The garlic flavor grows tastier the next day. It will last several days in the refrigerator. I liked to say it would last a week, but we ate it all by day three!

I love garlic yogurt sauce over rice and stir fried vegetables.

OH who am I kidding!?! The rice and vegetables are just an excuse to eat the sauce.

Herb Marinated Chicken Kabobs

I improvised this dish from the Herb Marinated Lamb Kabobs recipe from A Mingling of Tastes to get make these delicious chicken kabobs and the garlic yogurt sauce to go with them. Both recipes ROCKED!

HERE'S ALL IT TAKES

• 1 1/2 pounds chicken breasts, cut into large cubes
• 4 tablespoons oil
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon fresh rosemary, chopped or 1 teaspoon dried
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• fresh ground pepper
• wooden skewers soaked in warm water for 30 minutes
• 2 red onions, cut into large chunks
• white button mushrooms, whole
• 1 can chunk pineapple, drained
• course salt

Place the chicken cubes in a one gallon resealable plastic bag. Add in the oil, vinegar, rosemary, thyme, garlic and ground pepper. Seal the bag tightly, removing as much air as possible. Massage the oil and spices in and around the chicken until it looks well covered. Refrigerate the chicken and allow to marinate for 1 to 3 hours.

Before you fire up the grill, go ahead and prepare the kabobs. Alternating the meat and vegetables and fruit as you like on each skewer.

VERY HANDY TIP HERE
Try to put small meat cubes with small mushrooms and vegetables, and large meat cubes with large mushrooms and vegetable/fruit pieces. This way, they will cook evenly and in the same amount of time.

After you have the grill good and hot, lay the kabobs across the hot zone. Grilling should only take 6 to 8 minutes or so, not long at all because the chicken is cut into bite size pieces. You will want to give them at least one turn after a few minutes.

BEFORE

AFTER 6 to 8 minutes

I learned to pull the smaller kabobs off to the cool side of the grill to keep them warm, while the larger kabobs needed more time. These tasted great over a bed of rice and garlic-yogurt poured on top.