Quinoa Wholewheat Pita Bread w/ Guacamole

Did you know that home-made pita bread is incredibly easy? As easy as never again go to the store ever again EVER!

I had an avocado that was just perfect, small tomato and I have been craving some guacamole. But one thing was for sure – I was not going to pay high prices for imported pita bread or chips, that would be a) expensive and  b) loaded on salt, and other unpronouncable chemicals! There had to be another way. Now, I know we’re mixing Mexico with the Middle East here, but I just wanted something that wasn’t your regular bread (even though I wouldn’t put it past me having my guac with just toasted bread!) and I felt I wanted to do something with my flours….

I noticed this simple recipe on the Little Loaf’s blog and thought it would be perfect for this! It is! I may have gone a bit overboard on the rolling, so mine turned out a bit thin and crunchy. This was/is not bad at all, since they were chips-like and that was required for the occasion. The recipe says to roll them to 3 mm thickness – I have either lost sense of what is 3 mm or even if I had some thicker ones they didn’t grow as much in the oven, or weren’t as hers. So, I’d leave them even thicker than that, maybe 5 mm.

Maybe it was due to my flour mix. She makes hers with 175 gr whole wheat and 75 gr white flour. I wanted to use my quinoa flour and since last time I used it I read “mix 20% quinoa flour in your entire flour mix”, I took what 20% is of the 175 gr (so not the entire flour mix) and used that. Yes, I measured. I actually did math to get the grams. Crazy, I know. But this way, they’re just lightly tasting of quinoa, so they’re not overpowering at all. By this I mean, you can sneak in the flour without anyone noticing. Going half-half, you can already feel it. So if you want to hide it, go low. (picky eaters, beware!)

My guacamole is pure and simple. The quantity is indeed really small, but I am sure you can always add more avocados and more tomatoes. I usually use lime juice in the guacamole, which is absolutely lovely, but I only had lemon juice now. So the true one, use lime juice 🙂

Ingredients for pita bread:

140 gr whole wheat flour (T110)

75 gr white flour (T65)

35 gr quinoa flour

5 gr salt

7 gr dry active yeast

140 ml warm water, you might not need all of it

2 tsp olive oil, maybe a bit more

Preparation:

1. Sift and mix the flours in a bowl.

2. Add the salt and yeast and stir in.

3. Pour the oil in and add some of the water and start bringing the dough together.

4. Keep adding water and bringing it together in the bowl. You will need a different amount of water, depending on the mix of flours you choose. If you use all white flour, you might need more.

all but perfectly incorporated

5. Just before it’s all perfectly together, pour it over on the floured work surface and bring it together there and knead for a few moments. It was here that I noticed I wanted a bit more oil (so I oiled my hands and worked the flour) and some water (I sprinkled a bit), and I knead some more. You will see how the flours react. It is my first time using the quinoa in a bread recipe, so I don’t know what and how it likes things. I didn’t want to overwork it and even if it was a bit underdone, I called it quits.

see you in2h!

6. Once all nicely together and smooth (or all but) put in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and let it rise for 2h in a warm area (mine is on a chair, next to the radiator, which is just warm (never hot :/)

exhale….

7. When it has risen and doubled in size, preheat the oven to 428F/220C and place a baking sheet inside to heat up.

8. Take it out of the bowl, put in the lightly floured counter, press to get the air out and fold once or twice.

9. Cut 8 little pieces and roll them with a rolling pin, till they’re 3mm-5mm thick.

all different shapes and sizes…

10. Once the oven has heated up, take out the heated baking sheet, sprinkle it with flour, and add a few of the rolled pita breads, as many as you can fit without them touching.

Mmmmm…. fresh bread…

11. Bake for 5-6 minutes. (mine were pretty thin, so they were done in 6) What I did was I baked them for 3 minutes, turned the baking sheet around, baked for another 3. Done!

Ingredients for the guacamole:

1 ripe avocado

1 small tomato

fresh or frozen chopped cilantro

1/2 to 1 tsp lemon or lime juice (or to taste)

a sprinkling of paprika (chili powder is nicer, I didn’t have any)

salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. In a bowl, scoop out the avocado and mush it to a chunky purée texture.

2. On a chopping bloc, cut the tomato and take out the runny flesh out and chop the rest in tiny cubes and add to the avocado.

3. Add all the other ingredients and taste. Start off easy on the lemon/lime juice and the salt. Add, taste, add, taste. Sometimes the lemon can be more sour, sometimes less. So taste.

the 6 minute pita breads were not baking fast enough!

(you can add cumin or garlic or onion to your guacamole. I don’t like them inside. They overpower the awesome avocado and I find them in the way, I like mine pure)

Phew! I can finally sit down & enjoy it after all that “hard” work…

So, grab a warm pita and scoop out your fresh guacamole and enjoy! If you have a movie going on, so much better! These are very easy and quick to make, so if you have a party, you can wait till the guests arrive, or at least one victim, so that someone would roll and the other will keep an eye on the fast-baking pita bread and be pulling them out of the oven. By the time the rest of them come, you have warm home-made pita breads ready to go!