Spelt Pita

Spelt is one of the flours that I use. Though it is technically not gluten free, many gluten sensitive people can enjoy it. Spelt is especially good for sourdough breads and if I can ever find the berries here I will attempt some sprouted spelt sourdough. But for now the spelt sourdough bread that I have really come to enjoy is the Integrity Bread, found in Manitoban Health food stores.

Like all grains, Spelt (in whole berry form) should really be soaked and sprouted to break down the phytic acid (which is found naturally in grains, but binds to important nutrients that you're body will want) and to make the grain more easy to digest, or fermented. However, I do use store-bought spelt flour in this recipe (and for others).

The Pita

1 cup Spelt flour
1/4 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup water (room temp)
1/2 - 1 tsp olive oil (if necessary)

In a bowl mix flour and salt. Make a little well in the middle of the flour. Add water and oil (I usually just put the oil in). Mix with fork until mixture forms a ball. Divide into (4) balls. Flatten on floured surface. Roll out, keeping well floured.



Place on a hot (stainless steal) skillet (do not add oil or anything to the skillet). Bake about 3 minutes on each side.



If you want a thinner pita you can try to divide the dough into 5 balls, although, the thinner it gets the harder it is to lift and place on the skillet. You may be able to see in the pictures that some of the dough folded on itself in some of the pitas.



These pitas are great covered in butter and crushed garlic, toasted in the oven and served with hummus.

Or also for pizza!...


For pizza, I saute some onion and when the onion is almost soft I add some chopped garlic.
While the onion is cooking, I drizzle olive oil on the pitas. Give them a generous amount. I used to use store-bought rice wraps for this, and they didn't need very much oil because they were so thin, but these are thicker and can use more oil. Sprinkle spices of choice onto the oiled pita. I use oregano, basil and Herbamare. I load the softened onions on top of this, and then add chopped tomatoes and chicken if I have. Feta cheese would also go deliciously on this, and when I feel like a good cheat I add some. Add whatever ingredients you like - peppers, olives, whatever. I usually keep these pretty simple, but they can easily get fancy.

I place them in the oven at about 350 and I hardly time things, I just check every so often to see if they are crispy enough, of if the toppings are cooked to my liking, you probably don't need to bake these at all if you don't want to. Here, in Tasmania, I am still getting used to these different stoves. They have the oven part in the bottom, with only a bottom heat source. And then in a separate enclosure is the grill with the top heat source. For this round I just did them in the grill, I'm not sure if that's that best way to do them or not, but it turned out fine.

I added a simple salad to this meal. (I do not have the same ingredients that I had back in Canada, so the salad dressings are more or less made up every time. This time I believe it consisted of olive oil and a dash of apple cider vinegar and some oregano and garlic.) I make the salad more exiting by adding carrot, tomato and on my portion soaked sunflower seeds (Joey is allergic to sunflower seeds).