Why I LOVE cooking (and freezing)

One of my MOST favorite breakfast meals is stuffed french toast from IHOP. 

This morning we had stuffed french croissants with apple butter and a side of bacon

and I didn't even have to change out of my PJs!!!

Another one of my favorite things to do is make meals ahead of time and freeze them. 

The entire meal took me around 15 minutes to prepare. 

(The girls had regular french toast - not stuffed - It's a shame... one day they will learn.)

Two weeks ago, I made two loaves of bread.  I freeze them in half loafs.  I moved one out of the freezer yesterday to thaw to make french toast with this morning. 

A month ago, I had a couple MONSTER croissants left over.  I stuffed them with butter and cream cheese.  I stuffed them inside of a ziploc freezer bag and stuffed them in the freezer.  Yesterday I moved them down into the fridge to thaw out some.  This morning I cooked them. 

VERY. VERY. YUMMY.

I also had homemade apple butter in my freezer.  I moved that into the fridge too. 

Then, Hannah said, "Mom, do you have any bacon to go with this?"  Guess what?  I had some bacon that I had already cooked and put into a ziploc freezer bag, in the freezer.  I had not laid that one out to thaw.  I laid out the bacon on my small stone and put it in the toaster oven to thaw and warm for about 5 minutes.  DONE. 

A quick and yummy breakfast.

Pita Pocket Bread

Are you sitting down?

I have learned how to make a new kind of bread!!!

Do you know just how excited I get over bread?

I think you do.

This is Pita bread. 

You may have heard of this kind of bread. 

Most resturants serve "Pita Pockets". 

So, I present to you, Pita Pocket Bread!!

Total Ingredients:

4 cups of flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1 package of yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar (or honey)

1 1/2 cups of warm water (divided) 110 - 115 degrees

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

You will need three bowls. 

Large - Medium - Small

In the small bowl combine:

1 package of yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar (honey)

and 1/2 cup of warm water

Mix until dissolved.  Then, let it sit uncovered for 15 minutes.

It will get foamy.

During the 15 minutes...

Combine in the medium size bowl:

3 cups of flour

(I use 2 cups of the whole wheat and 1 cup of white.)

and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

Form a well in the bowl. 

(Push the flour and salt mixture up on the sides of the bowl and make a hole in the middle.)

Pour yeast mixture and 1 cup of water in the middle. 

Mix until it is well combined.  It will be a very sticky dough.

In the largest bowl, pour 1 Tablespoon of olive oil.

Pour the dough on top the oil and roll around so that all the dough is coated with oil.  This will prevent it from sticking to the sides of your bowl while it is rising.

Cover and place in a warm place to rise.  I normally turn my oven on 'warm' during the 15 minutes the yeast is foaming.  Then, I turn it off.  This provides a warm place for the dough to rise.

Let it rise for 3 hours.

I KNOW!!!

3 WHOLE HOURS!!!

Who can stand it???

Prepare your 'kneading place'.  I use my bar pan to knead in so I don't get flour all in the floor.  I dump the last 1 cup of white flour onto my bar pan.

The dough will triple in size. 

Knead the dough for 10 minutes.

Don't kid yourself - Knead for 10 WHOLE minutes!!

Roll the dough into a log shape.

Cut into 16 even sized pieces. 

These will make sandwich size pita breads.

Roll into balls.

Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

During the time, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Make sure to PREHEAT YOUR BAKING PAN!!!  This is an important step - otherwise, your first two pita breads will not make pockets.

Roll out into discs about 1/8 inch thick. 

Make sure to put enough flour down and flour your rolling pin so they do not stick.

Place two in the oven at a time and bake for 4 minutes.  I bake on a stone, so I do not turn mine.  You could bake on a wire rack or turn them half way through baking.

They will puff up like little woopie cushions. 

SO FUN!!!

Remove from oven and cool on a rack. 

Don't worry - no matter how perfectly you follow the recipe, some will make a pocket and some will not.

After they are completely cool, you can store them in any kind of air tight container. 

I am sure they would freeze perfectly and thaw. 

However, we never have any left over for me to freeze!

When you slice them in half, you will see the fun little pocket these breads make.  You can stuff whatever you LOVE inside of them.  Anything you put between two pieces of bread, you could stuff inside of these. 

In honor of my aunt Willa's favorite, we had "scrambled egg sandwiches" for breakfast.

Cari LOVED them!!!

I did too - my picture just didn't turn out quite so cute.... haha...

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have been.

One of the most recent suggestions I have had was to make a pizza crust out of them.  This would be PERFECT for the ones that don't puff up so well.