Healthy Pita Ideas

Someone on one of the eGroups I'm a part of was asking for healthy snack/lunch ideas the other day. I responded with some ideas and received a lot of positive feedback. So, I thought I'd share my response with you guys. Here it is:

We love pitas in our house! Ezekiel makes the best pita out there, in my opinion :-) They call it "Prophet's Pocket Bread". It's primarily whole wheat (organic), but it also has carrots (as the second ingredient!), millet flour, lentil flour, spelt flour, etc. It's not very good cold, but it's really good when you throw it in the toaster over for a couple of minutes. Another reason I like this pita is because it doesn't fall apart like other pitas tend to do. It's a wonderful product! You'll find it in the frozen section with the other frozen Ezekiel breads.

We fill our pitas with everything. Here are a few of our favorite combos:

- hummus, tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, cucumber (or any combo of the four)
- hummus, olives, red onions, tomatoes, jarred or fresh red bell peppers, and feta
- hummus, avocado, shredded carrots, spinach, olives, raisins, peas, walnuts (inspired by the All Raw rap at Spiral Diner)
- hummus, sliced hard boiled eggs, and avocado
- refried beans, avocado/guac, salsa
- kim chi with avocado
- bananas or apples with almond butter, raisins, shredded coconut, cinnamon, and honey

We try to avoid eating cheese most of the time, but every once in a while we'll buy some raw cheese and sprinkle it on a pita with marinara/pizza sauce on top...and pile it with veggies (chopped baby spinach is easy). Throw it in the toaster oven for a few minutes, and you've got a healthy, and very delicious, mini pizza.

If you don't want to make your own hummus, which is super easy, you can buy a big tub of organic hummus at Costco for around $5.

Amy

Garlic Un-Cheese Dip/Sauce

I threw this combo together this morning, and it turned out so yummy!

approx 1 cup raw cashews (soaked)
garlic chives (regular chives would probably work)
garlic powder
salt
water

Blend everything in the Vitamix. A food processor or regular blender would probably work...you just may not get a silky smooth texture.

All ingredients are to taste and texture. I ended up using a lot more chives than I thought I would. Add just a little bit of water at first and then keep adding little by little...don't add too much or it will be too runny. The texture I ended up with was a queso/thick cheese sauce like texture.

It's so simple...yet so delicious! For lunch today, I dipped raw veggies in it and made a "white pizza"...even though the sauce has a tint of green to it...it still tasted like a white pizza. It was super easy to make; I just took an Ezekiel pita, spread on the sauce, topped it with minced chard and chopped tomatoes...then threw it in the toaster oven for a few minutes. It was AMAZING! Vance (my 2 yr old) gobbled it up too.

The sauce would also be a great replacement for hollandaise or alfredo sauce if you made it a little runnier.

Enjoy!!!!

Amy