Early Rising - Parshat Bo II

Friday morning felt a bit like a reenactment of the Exodus story for me. I was up in the middle of the night (actually it was just much earlier in the morning than I ever wake up) because Sam was off to a conference and I thought I'd rise early with him and cook some soup for Shabbat as well as these pitas. While there was no dirt floored hut in Egypt, there was little light outside of my Cambridge kitchen window and there was a kneading bowl full of bread dough. The kneading bowl happened to be attached to my Kicthenaid mixer which I ended up throwing the dough into since I was having a tough time mixing it by hand (I threw in a few extra tablespoons of water to help the dough come together in the mixer).


After letting the dough sit for the time it took me to make some lentil soup, I divided it into round pieces and began to roll them into flat (sadly very asymmetrical) pitas. I could really smell the rosemary which I had kneaded in and helped wake me up a bit more than my cup of coffee did. I kept the newly formed but uncooked pitas covered in a damp cloth and fired up my cast iron skillet.


Each pita took about 3.5 minutes and for the ones that I left on a bit longer than that they really got a nice crackle on the outside.



I couldn't help but munch on one as I went along making them - kind of a funny snack at 7 am but it was really a treat to eat it right after it was made, so warm and soft and smelling of dough, garlic and rosemary.


At the end of the batch I was rewarded yet again with a pillowy pile of pita, which I babied by covering with a clean dry cloth.


Later that night, after all of our rushing around, Sam and I heartily enjoyed these along with the lentil soup for a simple Shabbat dinner for two. They were great on their own and were also nice to dip into the soup.

Sorry I didn't have time to report on this before Shabbat. I hope to tell you all about Parshat Bishalach in the next few days. Get excited, there will be some bonus recipes for a certain holiday coming up this week as well.