Egyptian Bread Recipe + House Updates

I had a great trip home to Oklahoma to visit the family in OKC and all my friends in Tulsa. I got some long overdue catch-up time with everyone (and got to see how big miss Collins is now!) and I can't wait til my next trip back :-) Thanks to everyone in OK for making it a great visit for me!

As promised, here is the recipe for the Egyptian bread that Mom and I made last week!

2 cups Semolina flour - (found at Reasor's for Tulsa folks, or at certain specialty grocery stores)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp salt
1 teaspoon yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water

Please ignore the cluttered counter - ready to be out of the tiny apartment!

Step 1: Pour the warm water into a large mixing bowl and add the yeast and sugar. Stir until well mixed and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes. When you come back, it should look something like this:

Step 2: Add the semolina flour and all-purpose flour to the yeast mixture and stir together (it starts getting sticky pretty quickly, so you'll probably need to mix with your hands after the first few stirs). 

Step 3: Knead the dough for 10 minutes - it should be smooth and not sticky. 

Step 4: After 10 minutes of kneading, mix the tablespoon of salt with one tablespoon of water and add to the dough (we made an indentation in the dough and poured the salt water in it). Knead the salt water into the dough and continue kneading until it reaches the consistency it had at the end of Step 3.

Step 5: Separate the dough into six balls, then let them rise covered for 5 to 10 minutes.

Step 6: Flatten the balls into 1/2 inch tall circles. Cover and let rise for 1 hour.

Step 7: Put oil in a skillet (we used olive oil) and set to medium-low heat (I put my burner on "4"). Once the skillet and oil are ready, place one dough circle in the skillet and let it brown. After making several of these, Mom and I decided you should let the dough brown on each side as long as possible before burning it because the middle will stay uncooked if you turn it too soon. Once the bread has turned a nice golden brown, turn it with a spatula and let the other side brown. Remove from the skillet and let cool, then cut and serve!

We found some cranberry pepper jam at Whole Foods which is really good with this bread, and we added cheese and strawberries to the mix as well. It's very tasty! Apparently it's also really good as sandwich bread, but we haven't tried it yet.

Also - lumber, windows, and a shower/tub have been delivered at the new house! We're hoping that we'll have some walls up sometime this week!

View from inside the basement