Whole Wheat Pitas

It had been years since I'd made pitas and when I came across this recipe it made me remember how easy and delicious homemade pitas were.  I had all the ingredients on hand so I decided to make them one snowy Sunday.  As with many yeast breads, there is some downtime so this is a great recipe to make when you're trying to multitask - i.e. watch football!

After making the dough, you need to place it in a greased bowl and put it somewhere warm for its first rise.  Once the dough has risen for the first time, it's ready to be rolled out and cut into eight portions.

Flatten each portion and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.  Make sure you put a bit of cornmeal or flour on the parchment before placing the dough on the cookie sheet.  Place a clean towel over the dough to rise for about 20 minutes.  Once the dough has risen bake in a preheated 500 degree oven for about five minutes on each side.  You can place the pitas directly on the oven rack, use a pizza stone or bake them on the cookie sheets.  For the first five minutes, I baked them directly on the rack, but decided I didn't like the lines left them on them.  I put them cookie sheets to bake the other side and they came out perfectly.

These are great directly out of the oven and they are so versatile!  The reason there are only seven pitas in the picture is that I couldn't wait to eat a a hot pita as soon as it came out of the oven.  :)  In my opinion, these are best on their own but I've had them with salads, used them as pizza crust as well as for sandwiches.  I stored them in a ziploc bag and kept them in the refrigerator so they would stay fresh.  These can be frozen, but be sure to wrap each individually with wax paper before freezing to keep them from sticking together.  To reheat the pitas, I recommend wrapping the pita in foil and placing in an 400 degree oven until warmed through.

Enjoy!

Source: Annie's Eats