Who thinks it’s a good idea to plan a breakfast – not brunch, breakfast – that requires at least an hour in the kitchen, especially when that hour is 8am on a Sunday?  Me, apparently.

See, the oven needed to preheat for an hour before the pita bread could go in, and the whole point of baking the pita this morning was to accompany the spicy Israeli tomato-egg dish that I saw on Smitten Kitchen on Friday, and making that dish might take most of that hour anyway, and besides, we had a full day of projects planned, so best to get an early start, right?  Right?

Long story short: up at 8, an hour in a million degree kitchen, and the end result?  Pitas that puffed up like happy little clouds:

I’m not sure if the magic lay in proofing in the refrigerator overnight, or sitting at room temperature in little rounds for 20 minutes, or being rolled out thin and then sitting for another 10 minutes, or misting with a bit of water before hitting the 475F oven – but there was some magic up in there.  Delicious, delicious magic.

So delicious that we barely let the pitas cool before tearing them open and dipping them into the shakshuka – eggs poached in a (supposedly) spicy tomato sauce.  I say ‘supposedly’ because while the sauce was warm and filling, it was far from spicy, and the eggs needed longer to poach than I gave them.  If I were to make this recipe again, I would NOT add any water (directions say to add tomatoes + their juices + 1/2 cup water), and would kick in another anaheim pepper or two.

On the whole, however, a savory and filling breakfast which provided good fuel for a day’s worth of projects.  And yay, finally pita bread success!

Recipes, both from Smitten Kitchen:
Shakshuka
Pita Bread