The time I made Greek Lamb Kebabs and almost burned the house down

So do you guys remember when I told you about making your own artisan breads at home?  Well turns out you can make your own pita bread at home too, with the same dough!

When I bought this cookbook I read through things cover to cover and was amazed with the wide variety of recipes you can make using the standard doughs.  By taking a piece of the cold dough and rolling it into a thin disk you can make pitas.  You have to make sure that you keep the edges sealed and there are no puncture marks anywhere.  Then you bake them in a very hot (500 degree!) oven on a pizza stone for 5-6 minutes and get this magic pita pocket out.

The method was actually really simple.  The steam created gets trapped inside the disk and creates the famous pocket shape.

The problem is that over the past year things have fallen into the bottom of our oven that burned off at 500 degree heat.  Pretty much a self cleaning cycle.  The smoke alarm was blaring.  Charlie was barking.  The windows were open and fans were on to air things out.  It was a hot hot mess!

Literally.

Fortunately the pitas came out great!  Better than any store bought I’ve had.  Surpassed only by a traditional Mediterranean restaurant in Iowa City that has the best pitas and hummus in the world.

So I had pitas, and I needed something good to fill them with.  In the same cookbook there was a recipe for kebabs that looked great.  I’ve never cooked lamb of any kind before, but these were delicious, and compared to the pita massacre they were really easy.

All you have to do is gently mix the spices into the meat and let it sit 1-2 hours.  Then I formed it into long patties, skewered them and grilled them.

Served with pitas, hummus, cucumber sauce, and a make shift tabbouleh.

Quite the exotic meal for a Wednesday!

If you don’t want to make your own pitas, buy some.  If you don’t want to make hummus, buy some.  But make the kebabs.  You won’t regret it.