Instead, here's this month's Daring Cooks challenge. The 2010 February Daring COOKs challenge was hosted by Michele of Veggie Num Nums. Michele chose to challenge everyone to make mezze based on various recipes from Claudia Roden, Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Dugid.
When I saw the challenge, I was really excited. I absolutely love hummus and have made it many times. But I've never made pita.
I had a bag of wheat flour and decided to use it to make pitas. The process wasn't really hard, but my pitas did not "balloon" in the oven, and unfortunately tasted a bit cardboard-y.
The hummus was a combination of all of your typical ingredients: chickpeas, garlic, lemon juice, tahini, etc. This recipe was WAY too heavy on the lemon. I should have corrected it, but I ate it as is.
I also made an Eggplant & Tomato dip to go along with the pita.
Yes you are right way too much lemon in the recipe (I used only 1/2 tablespoon). And your tomato & eggplant dip is smashing. Cheers from Audax in Sydney Australia. And sorry to hear the pitas didn't work out too well.
ReplyDeleteWell, your pita does look very thick indeed... I used different flour so maybe that was the problem. I also thought the hummus had way too much lemon in it and I wanted to use eggplant dip but my supermarket was all of out eggplant!! I might be using your recipe at a later point though. It looks delicious!
ReplyDeletePita bread and hummus are my favorite appetizers! Happy Valentine's Day, Olga!
ReplyDeleteLove the eggplant and hummus here. Whole wheat pita look delicious as well.
ReplyDeleteMy pita was similar. We'll figure out a great version soon enough =D.
ReplyDeleteI think your tomato eggplant dish looks fantastic - a great addition to mezze. I would have been afraid of the wheat flour. I have a hard enough time with regular flour :)
ReplyDeletesorry for the cardboard but it still looks delicious.
ReplyDeletemy lemons where not that lemony so I loved the hummus.
Well, I am glad you did not chose a Valentine menu. There are so many out there at this moment. More importantly: Since I have stumbled upon your food blog, I realized that all your recipes are accessible, genuinelu homey and smart ideas. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteThat eggplant dip looks great. And I love the dish with both dips in it! Sorry your pitas weren't what you were hoping for, but they are definitely worth trying again!
ReplyDeleteSee... and here I was thinking how perfect a post on small plates was for Valentine's day -- all that finger food, perfect for feeding one another like lovers! :)
ReplyDeleteAs far as the challenge goes, it shows how much I follow recipes! :) I glanced at the hummus recipe, but I don't think I followed the ratios... just added ingredients until they tasted "right"! Apparently, that was a GOOD thing.
The eggplant and tomato dip looks delicious - did it taste as good as it looks?
My dad makes pita all the time. He says if you let the pittas sit after you've shaped them into pitas they balloon. If you put them right in the oven they come out flat. Some people like them flat, some people like them as a pocket. Hes been making them forever and its taken him a while to perfect it.
ReplyDelete*kisses* HH
oh wow love hummus amazing pictures
ReplyDeletehappy valentines
Rebecca
Your dips look all so delicious! I tried the pitas with 1/2 whole wheat flour and usually make them all white. I do prefer the all white flour ones....maybe because they turn out more like the ones in the restaurants:)
ReplyDeleteWhole wheat pitas sound interesting. The hummus and the eggplant dip are just gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteLove hummus! No matter how your pita came out, my hat is off to you for trying to make them from scratch. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for cooking along with me this month. I'm sorry that the pita wasn't a huge success, but I think it looks good. Your photos are lovely!
ReplyDeleteSilly, almost irrelevant question. Isn't Hummus Zohan's all purpose food additive? I think that's where I heard it from. I didn't know it was real food.
ReplyDeleteMy pita didn't "balloon" either, and was quite dense. I told my boyfriend that it might make good pizza crusts! So we froze them and will try making individual pizzas with them!
ReplyDeleteThose are two tasty and healthy dips! They would both make for a great snack or light meal with the pita or some bread!
ReplyDeletei love adding paprika to my hummus. it gives it a nice kick. remind me to give you my lebneh recipe, or did you try it and not like it. i can't remember.
ReplyDelete