Momma Fry Bread

Today's yummy food sharing I thought I would share a classic that has been a part of my family for YEARS. As long as I can remember growing up for dinner on occasion we would have fry bread. And I am not positive, but I think my Mom also had this growing too, so its been in the family for a while. Then also being a native to Arizona, we also heard people call them "Navajo Tacos," because the Navajos in AZ would make something very similar to these, but much bigger, like a tortilla size. And last but not least, I have also heard of people from Utah call them "Scones" all though I absolutely hate that title, (just a silly pet peeve of mine, nothing against you personally if you like to call them that name), because if you look up the real true honest scone, they are more like a biscuit you eat with jam, don't believe me, google it yourself, or even check out this wikipedia link, and let me rest my case.

Back to the fry bread...

 They are oh so yummy and also very versatile. But the only down side, is yes, they are "fried" thus being called "FRY" bread. So that little disclaimer can make them a little not as healthy as if it was "baked" bread, and I don't know if you are this way, but sometimes fried food gives me heartburn, not fun. But despite all this, they are still very yummy, and I think would be fine on more rare occasions.

One of my all time favorite part about making these is that you can use a regular bread recipe and it will make you yummy fry bread. For many years I used my mom's classic bread recipe, but in recent years or so I have been using a new recipe, which is the one I will share if you would like to use instead of any other bread  recipe you have up your sleeve.

So here it is:

Whole Wheat Bread
(This amount makes about two loafs of bread, one loaf worth is plenty of fry bread to feed my little family of three, so base your making needs off that)
3 cups hot water
1 &half Tbs yeast
1Tbs Salt
1/3 cup oil ( I always like to do half applesauce, half oil)
1/3 cup honey or sugar
1/4 cup Gluten flour
6-7 cups of whole wheat flour

Combine all the ingredients except the flour. Let it set for about 10 mins. Then slowly add the flour till it is well blended in a dough like form. Then knead by hand or in a machine for about 6 mins.

Or I have also used this Pizza dough recipe and it made the pieces of fry bread really extra fluffy and bubbly (Which is my all time favorite, because then you can open it and stuff it with goods, like a pita pocket or something!). So that recipe is here, which I recently found at THIS website. And this recipe is directly pasted from the website.

Basic Pizza Doughyield: 2-12 inch pizzas, approximately 1 lb. of dough
Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon honey {or sugar}
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive or canola oil
3 cups bread flour {give or take 1/2 cup…depending on the heat & humidity}
Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, preferably that of a stand mixer, stir yeast and honey into warm water. Sit for 5-10 minutes or until bubbles form and mixture starts to foam. This tells you that the yeast is alive and kicking. Pour in salt, oil and half the flour and mix. Once that flour is incorporated, start adding flour in bit by bit until you get the pizza dough to the consistency you want: slightly tacky, but when you touch it it doesn’t stick to your hands. Once you reach this stage, turn the mixer on high to knead for 6 minutes. Turn a timer on and walk away! Resist the temptation to stop earlier than 6 minutes! The dough should be smooth and easy to work with. And the bowl should be clean! Lightly grease the bowl & the dough so it doesn’t dry out, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 1-2 hours. That’s it!

 After you have made your dough, you can let it rise for a little while, or just jump right in to make them (which sometimes I do if I am crunched on time to get dinner going). The next step is to roll out the dough on a lightly greased surface with a rolling pin to about 1/8 inch thick and then cut into strips as big or small as you'd like, I like to make mine about the size above, which is like 2inches by 4 inches or so, but the size doesn't really matter that much. Before or during this part, put your oil in a frying pan and turn it to a medium heat to get it started warming up.

 When the oil is hot, carefully start putting the pieces of dough into the pan. Fry a few minutes on each side till it has a nice golden brown sort of look. I would give you an exact amount of time, but each time I do it, it is different, so you just have to kind of figure out what is best for your and your stove and your dough.

You don't have to, but after they are done I like to let them cool a little on a cooling wrack (with a paper towel underneath to catch the oil drips), to keep it from getting too moist in a bowl, and to also hopefully get some unnecessary excess oil off.

After a few minutes you can load them in a bowl ready to serve.

Now in my recent much lacking of taking better pictures, ideally I would have more pictures to show you how to load up the fry bread and how it looks most yummy to eat, but since I failed I will just explain. For our family these goods taste oh so yummy with a layer of re-fried beans, then diced tomatoes, chopped lettuce, and grated cheese (kind of the same sort of things you'd eat with a regular taco), or you can also add olives, onions, whatever you have on hand or would like to eat that is in that sort of "taco" category. But that is what makes these so great is they can be pretty versatile, so doesn't really matter entirely what you eat them with. Oh and another favorite at our house is to eat them with a little honey or powdered sugar on top. They really are so good!

So that's all I have for today except to announce that we've finally decided the lovely prizes for the 100th Venture giveaway, April will be making a lovely adorable Apron, and I will give $10 worth of Bare books to the winner to pick anything they'd like from this wonderful Bare book website. The giveaway will start Monday,  March 19th, and I will have a new separate tab at the top of the page that you can go to for the details on it. So don't hesitate to join in on the fun!

Until next time!