Zucchini & Msemmen Flatbreads (18th Bread Braid)

Well, this will be my first post to this blog or any blog for that matter.  This week my adventure took me to the 18th Bread Braid of the HBin5 Bread Baking group.  For this braid the challenge was to make a Zucchini Flatbread and an Algerian Flatbread called Msemmen, using the recipe for 100% Whole Wheat Bread, Plain and Simple from page 79 of the book.  Since I made the Msemmen first I will start there.  As discovered by others in the group, the amount of olive oil to use in combination with the spices was a little excessive.  I cut the spice amounts in half and added ~ 1 Tbsp EVOO to them.  Then I drizzled (sparingly) the oil mixture onto the rolled out dough round.   I found that if you drizzle even just a little

too much,  when you go to roll the dough up into the log, the oil

mixture piles up or pools at the end and starts to leak out onto whatever

surface you're working on.  I rolled my 5 oz dough balls out into ~ 7 in. circles.  There's no way you'd get it rolled out to 12 in. as suggested in the book.  My rolled up coil did not want to stay coiled, but I just left it alone until I rolled it out flat to 1/8 inch thickness. 

I only put ~ 1 Tbsp olive oil in my

skillet to cook my Msemmen in.  I didn't see the need for any more than that.  My Msemmen cooked up really well in the skillet.  The Msemmen I made the first day was not nearly as browned, but the Msemmen I made for my husband and I was nicely browned as my husband encouraged me to cook the full 5 min. on the second side.   The nicely browned Msemmen had a better texture and had some crunch to it.  I made some

Lemon Garlic Hummus  to spread on the Msemmen.  The Morrocan version of Msemmen is served with honey, but since we had made the spicier Algerian version,  hummus seemed an appropriate spread for it.     I also considered serving a chutney with it, as someone else I read about online had done when he made Msemmen.  He had used an apple cranberry chutney, but since the jars were $5 something at the store, I reconsidered and made the hummus since I had all the ingredients.  Here is my sous chef waiting on his dinner, which is late at this point, and our finished Msemmen.

Now on to the Zucchini Flatbread.  Since I had made the Msemmen twice using two 5 oz pieces of dough, I only had ~ 20 oz. of dough left.  When my husband asked "What kind of sauce?" and "NO Meat?" after I told him we were having zucchini flatbread for dinner, I knew I had better make two 'pizza's'.  So we made two flatbreads, each using ~10 oz of the dough.  Since we were on an adventure and Guff had grilled his flatbread, I decided we'd try grilling one of the pizza's.  (We'd never grilled pizza before)

Dean grilled the pepperoni pizza outside, while I made the zucchini flatbread in the oven.

I only used ~3/4 of a medium zucchini which I don't think was enough, but I wanted the rest of the zucchini for kabobs the next night.  I also added a clove of minced garlic to the skillet and some crushed red pepper flakes.  Here's the topped "pizza" before it goes into the oven:

  I thought Guff had a good idea using corn, so I thawed some frozen corn to put on mine.  Oh, and I also brushed the crust edges with some EVOO for browning.  Here's the pizza my husband did outside on the grill.  Success!!!!! We were very proud of ourselves for not flipping the pizza on the ground or burning it to black chardom.

The pizza's were ready to be eaten :)  We were sooooo hungry!

Dean was very good 

and ate 3 pieces of zucchini

flatbread, so I gave him my

share of the pepperoni

pizza that was left.  The

sous chef got crust scraps.

Tucker was very happy

with his share of our

adventure!!

If you want to see the beautiful creations of others who baked the Zucchini Flatbread and Msemmen, then I encourage you to visit Big Black Dogs and take a look!!