Category Archives: sandwiches

Pita bread

03 Friday Oct 2014

Posted by in bread, kids, kids lunchbox ideas, pita, sandwiches, vegan, Vegetarian

≈ 4 Comments

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pita final-1

Like many other things in life, pita turned out to be easier than originally thought.

2 cups flour (I used 1 c bread and 1 c plain), plus plenty for kneading
1 cup warm water
2 tsp salt
2 tsp instant yeast
2 tbs good olive oil

1) Mix all the dry ingredients together, then drizzle the olive oil in. Mix again and add the warm water.

2) Mix first with a wooden spoon and then dump onto an incredibly clean counter and knead with your hands (and plenty of flour) until the dough is soft and not sticky. About 5 min or so.

3) Put a little oil in a bowl and put in the kneaded dough, then cover it tightly with a kitchen towel.

4) Warm the oven a little–for a minute or two. It shouldn’t be hot or able to cook anything. Turn the oven off and put the pita dough (covered) in the oven to rise for an hour or two.

5) After the dough has about doubled in size, gently punch down to release the air, knead a couple times and then divide into 8 pieces. Use plenty of flour throughout this process as the dough will still stick.

6) Roll out each piece about the size of pita you would like (not as thin as a tortilla) and then set aside, with a good sprinkling of flour and stack as you roll.

7) Heat the oven up pretty hot–about 430-450 degrees. Place the pitas (not touching) onto a baking sheet and place on the top shelf of the oven. When they puff up (after a few minutes), flip over to quickly brown the other side.

The pitas will cook quickly–in under 5 minutes. Once you take them out of the oven they will gradually lose air and settle down, but you will have some great pita pockets for falafel or other fillings.

risen dough-1

dough balls-1

pita 2-1

A quick lunch to take away

22 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by in healthy, kids lunchbox ideas, peanut free, salad, sandwiches, vegan, Vegetarian

≈ 6 Comments

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quick lunch; vegan wrap

Ok so the main reason we fail at work lunch time is because of time. It seems as though everyone around me all over this world (our round blue spaceship hurtling through space, by the way) wakes up at the crack of dawn and walks their dog, gets their kids up, makes coffee, makes breakfast, gets ready for work, and so on. Who has time to make themselves a nice lunch? Your kids (if you have them) are lucky if they even get a nice lunch. But yourself? Forget it.

There’s the easiest solution: buy something—buy something spectacular, buy something healthy, buy something cheap. There’s the perfectly respectable but unglamorous solution: bring in last night’s leftovers that you shoved into 10 year-old tupperware that’s sure to gross everyone out when you heat it up in the office microwave. Or there’s the alternative to saving time: take even more time, wake up even earlier, watch the sun come up, defy your physical limitations and make yourself a nice, crisp, farmers market healthy lunch.

Use what you have, for example, I had tortillas, roasted portabellos from a bbq, sliced zucchini salad, lettuce, jalapeno, olives, cucumber and basil. Anything, any vegetable at all would be delicious, such as radish, artichoke, bean sprouts, cilantro, parsley, cabbage, pickles, peppers, carrots, etc. Any spread would work (or choose to go spreadless), such as hummus, guacamole, cream cheese mixed with herbs, homemade ranch, tzatziki, etc.

There’s really no cooking involved of course. This is what I did, but the possibilities are endless.

Quick take-away style vegan wrap:
serves 1
1 flour tortilla (plain, whole wheat, spinach)
1 tbs hummus (or other spread)
2 leaves soft green lettuce
3 slices cucumber, sliced lengthwise
3 slices raw zucchini, sliced lengthwise
1/2 tomato, sliced
1/2 fresh jalapeno, sliced
1 roasted portabello mushroom, sliced
3 leaves basil
a few kalamata olives, sliced

1) Lay a tortilla on a piece of parchment paper and spread with hummus (or similar).
2) Layer all the vegetables on one side.
3) Carefully roll up, using the parchment paper to help hold everything together, like a sushi rolling mat.
4) Either cut in half, keeping the parchment paper on and eat as a wrap, or cut into sushi-style rolls, but be careful they don’t fall apart.

vegan vegetable wrap