Good eats

Our weekend ended up not being quite as lazy as I thought it would. We'd noticed that the paint in our bathroom on the wall and ceiling above the shower was cracked. We didn't think too much of it because we wanted to repaint in there anyway. Fred took Friday off, and when he started scraping the cracked areas, a lot more paint/wall texture came off than we had expected. Fred did most of the work on Friday, but we both spent a good part of Saturday finishing scraping and washing down the walls. We made a trip to the paint store, and are now prepared to prime the scraped spots, re-texture the walls, prime the whole room, and then paint. We're aiming to have all of this finished before Fred's parents come to visit next week, because we've taken over the guest bathroom until we finish ours.

I did get time on Sunday to do some baking. I made these garlic parsley flatbreads to go with the Greek lamb pilaf from this month's Cooking Light. Both recipes turned out really well.


In case anyone would like to try her (or his) hand at them, I adapted the recipe from my favorite cookbook. Here's the recipe I used:

2 c. white bread flour
1 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour
1 pkg. rapid-rise yeast
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. warm water
1/4 c. olive oil (plus a few tablespoons for the tops)
2-3 cloves garlic
handful of parsley

Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a bowl. Pour in the water and olive oil, and mix to make a firm dough (add more flour if necessary). Either knead by hand or with a stand mixer until smooth and elastic (about 5-10 minutes). Form the dough into a ball, and place in an oiled bowl, turning the dough so the whole ball is oiled. Cover with a tea towel and let rise until doubled, about half an hour.

When the dough has risen, punch it down, and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, finely chop the parsley and garlic cloves together until they almost make a paste (I suppose you could use a food processor). Transfer the parsley and garlic into a small bowl and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, to make about 1/2 cup.

Split the dough into eight balls. Flatten each of the balls into a 6-inch wide disc (about 1/2-inch thick). Cover with a towel and let rise for about 25 minutes. When they've risen, poke the tops of the breads to dimple them, and then spread about 1 tablespoon of the parsley mixture over the tops.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes, after which the breads should be nice and brown on top, but still soft inside. Sprinkle the breads with salt and serve.