Daring Cooks: Gluten-Free Pitas and Hummus

I was nervous and excited about this month's Daring Cooks challenge.  Pita.  One of those things you either forget about or lust over on a gluten-free diet (croissants, oreos, graham wafers, doughnuts and many other things are also in that category).  The challenge was for Mezze, a style of eating including hummus and pita.  I did this on a day with lots of food.  Pita, hummus, butternut squash dip, baba ganoush, falafel, as well as a nice breakfast, buns (to come) and cake.  It was busy, but also relaxing.  A good day.

First off, I would like to thank Michele, our host.  She did an amazing job hosting.  Its a lot of work, but also fun and rewarding.

For that reason, I'm sad to say that this wasn't my favourite challenge.  The flavours just didn't gel with us.  Maybe I was heavy handed in adding garlic or lemon juice, but in the end it wasn't a winner.  However, I'm glad I made it and I really want to play with pita in the future.  Wheat balloons up (literally), so if I could get that (even just a teeny tiny bit) it would be wonderful.  Pitas were a very regular bread alternative in my house.  Mini-pitas filled with a bit of peanut butter were weekly (at least) occurrences.  Something I miss?  No doubt.

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.

Now, I'm going to let the photos do the talking.  Okay, with a touch of commentary =D.

Pita dough hasn't been conquered by me yet.  However, they patted out nicely!

The left one had been in for longer.

They didn't puff up.  I was secretly hoping they would double and triple like this cake had.

And, I only dropped parts of two (it might have been three) pitas when putting them onto the pizza stone!  Taking them out was the easy part.

Don't they look nice?  They didn't taste bad, but not fantastic either.  The ratios I played with weren't perfect by any means.  I have some ideas though.

My first eggplant.  That I've cooked at least. 

Look at that tender beautiful meat!  The heart shape is how I'm bringing valentines day into this =D.  If you celebrate, have a great night.  If not, have a great night.

And, the baba ganoush.  I used this recipe.  

This might be my favourite part.  It was also my first time with butternut squash.  I cubed and boiled it until tender.  Then, drained and mashed it and put in a touch of honey.  Simple as can be.  Delicious too.

The colour brings just the right amount of spunk to the mezze.

The hummus.  Will try again with much less lemon juice and less garlic.  That should do the trick for me =D.

Our mezze platter.  Minus the falafel.  It was just coming out of the oven.

See?  Here it is!  I baked the falafel, for ease more than anything.  I was wiped and oil was not gonna happen.  And, it sometimes makes my tummy turn.  Anyways, these looked nice and all but were just too strong.  I think these are things that must be eased into =D.

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Yes, I am going to try this again.  Not sure how much, but I really want to play with the flavours, maybe focusing more on the base ingredients than the spices.  Plus, mezze is an entire style of eating so the possibilities are endless!  

Also, for those of you that haven't got it yet, the Haiti Ebook is still for sale!  It contains over 80 recipes that make the authors feel at home, from over 70 contributors (including some Daring Cooks!).  All proceeds go to the Red Cross.  So far, it has raised over $1400.  Government matching (and the matching from my parents) which are now finished, made that into $4755.  Please continue to buy it, it can cost anything from $10 and up - its completely your decision.

I think thats about it.  

xoxo 

Lauren

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