I live in South Florida and as the numbers of confirmed cases of COVID_19 continue to rise, everyone is running around trying to find the basic food and household necessities fearing that everything except essential businesses will shut down. Wait! Everything has shut down, but things are moving faster than the Florida Everglades wildfires, so I temporarily forgot.
With parents struggling to work at home and also home school the kids, there are more meals to make. Items like bread, eggs and meat are hard to come by or not available. Rather than buy supermarket convenience food, I’ve put my mother’s World War II “how to feed a family” strategies into place.
Periodically on my blog, you’ll find tips on how I’m, “Feeding Five Under Twenty-Five” dollars. Keep eating healthy and exercise because that will help you manage the stress.
Here’s my first “Feeding Five Under Twenty-Five” recipe:
Cast Iron Cooked Flatbread Filled with Leftover Meat
1 package of active dry yeast
2 tsp of sugar
1 c of warm water (115°) – use only ½ c of water for the yeast
2 ½ c of all purpose flour
1 tsp of salt
3 tbsp olive oil
Dissolve the yeast and sugar in ½ c of water and reserve the other half.
Wait at least 5 minutes until the yeast becomes active. The top will resemble beer foam.
Combine the flour and salt. I use a mixer with bread hook, but with a spoon is fine. Slowly add the yeast and then the olive oil and the water (you may not need all of it) and blend until almost combined. I do the rest by hand and then knead until everything comes together and you can form a smooth ball. You don’t need to knead it too much, but here’s a ‘how to’ video.
Coat your mixing bowl with about 1 tbsp of olive oil and place the dough back in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a (warm water) damp tea towel.
Go do something else for an hour. I chose to run outside because it’s a great way to get some Vitamin D and restore my sanity while in quarantine.
The dough should double within the hour. Punch it down and remove the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Roll it into a tube and cut into six even pieces.
I used semolina flour, but any flour for rolling will do. Sprinkle some flour onto a rolling pin and roll into a thin disk. You can also rotate and stretch the dough like you’d do when making pizza. See this link which BTW is my favorite pizza dough recipe.
Heat a cast iron pan on medium until it is very hot (think pizza oven hot!) Add one of the rolled out dough pieces and watch it bubble up quick. Wait about 3 minutes and take a peak. You can flip it when it’s golden or get the charred look. Cook for another 3 minutes.
Note: A cast-iron pan gets very hot, so lower the temperature slightly if you think the dough will brown too quickly.
To keep the flatbreads warm and moist, wrap them in a tea towel.
I filled the flatbreads with leftover carné con papas (beef stew) from the night before. Shred the meat and chop the potatoes into small pieces. There wasn’t a lot of meat left so I added some chorizo too. Top the meat with chopped tomatoes, avocado, shredded cheese and cilantro. I didn’t have sour cream, but it’s healthier without it.
If you’ve read this far and hopefully making this recipe, I hope you’re now sharing my joy of creating something wonderful to eat. More than that, here’s a great time to stop watching the news or checking social media. You’ll have a yummy distraction for yourself and make your loved ones very happy.
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
