A favorite fast food restaurant of mine is called the Pita Pit. You make your pita to go and can put whatever you want in it. They have a ton of veg options (hummus, baba ganoush, veggie patties, the whole gamut of veggies and sauces). I want variety, so I love this place. The more you can stuff into a pita, the better, in my opinion. But, it costs $5. And I’m a mom, so when do I go out to eat (other than those blessed occasions when J (hubby) and I can get away for a date)?
Also, I find it very difficult to find a good, quality whole grain pita with no funky additives (you know it’s just a whole-grain pita, but the ingredient list is 10 lines long and you’re thinking, hmmm, I think I’m on to them…). Maybe where you live, such a thing as a simple whole-grain pita exists, but I have had no luck. And I’m kinda picky, too. I want my pita to be BIG (the better to stuff it with). All the store bought ones I’ve found are tiny.
So recently I made my own pitas. It was soooo easy although it did take about an hour. But I made extras and threw those in the freezer for later. I used the same dough as my whole wheat bread dough, but instead of making it into a loaf, I made little balls of dough and flattened them out into circles. Then I baked, on a baking stone for 4 minutes at 450 F. Since it’s a yeasted bread, and very thin dough in a HOT oven, they puff up and cook in no time. I found about 1/4″ thick works best. I let the pita cool, sliced it in half, stuffed it with some of my favorite things in the world (grated zucchini, tomato slices, sprouts, and no-oil hummus)–delish.
The great thing about pitas is that they give you half the calories of a sandwich (one big pita, usually runs around the same amount of dough as a good sized slice of bread), so it satisfies the bread craving and you can fill it full of all sorts of delicious and fun things. Here are some ideas for fillings:
- Sweet raw corn (I buy mine frozen from Costco, run some hot water over it for a few minutes and then whaddaya know, one of my kid’s FAVORITE foods!)
- Canned beans of your choosing
- Hummus
- Baba Ganoush (an eggplant dip)
- Veggie/Bean Burgers
- Tofu Mayo
- Tomatoes
- Raw sunflower seeds
- Lettuce
- Sprouts
- Onions
- Pickles
- Leftover soup/rice/cooked grain
- Mustard
- Dijon Mustard
- Green Tabasco sauce (this stuff is DIVINE)
Eat with a bowl of soup, some fruit, and/or a salad and you’ve got a quick and easy lunch!
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