Pepper-Garlic Pita Chips -with- Olive-Pesto Chicken Salad

The chicken salad was going to be the headliner in this 2-for-1 recipe, until I tasted these crispy pita chips. Ohhh, where have these been all my life! 

For a brief history, they began as only a glimmer of a recipe idea since discovering them, freshly baked at Falastin, our sweet little Palestinian restaurant-bakery-deli and market, a mile from my house, in the recently redone building that was previously The New London Cafe.

I've been buying their packs of pita pocket bread for about a month now and it's been a great discovery for toasting, then making my favorite PB&J - organic fresh ground peanut butter and jalapeno pepper jam. I also use them for grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato and onion. Everything has been so good made with this interesting bread! 

PITA CHIPS

2  8" pita pockets

single source EVOO

black + cayenne pepper

Lawry's Garlic Salt

Cut each pitas in half, then cut the layers apart as shown. Cut each half-circle into 2 pieces - this will make 16 chips. Brush inner surfaces with EVOO, arange on a baking sheet then sprinkle with seasonings. This photo shows them brushed, seasoned and ready for the oven.

Bake at 375° for about 15 minutes or until the surfaces start to turn golden brown. Serve with chicken or tuna salad, hummus, red pepper dip. . .you decide! Be creative! (These are savory, if you want, you could make them sweet by brushing with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.)

CHICKEN SALAD

See the first photo for ingredient amounts, 6 oz. roasted chicken dark meat, only half of a medium purple onion, some large garlic-jalapeno stuffed olives, a little green pepper and a celery heart. Chop everything into a medium glass bowl then add mayonnaise, sour cream or your favorite dressing. I used about 1T Dijon mustard and just enough of the Garlic-Pesto Ranch Dressing I made recently to hold everything together.

Served with the amazing crispy pita chips and some salt and peppered tomato and cucumber was a great late lunch. . .Lin

Garlic Pesto Ranch Dressing - Tuna and Egg Salad

I love ranch dressing. Actually, my favorite is an off-brand buttermilk-peppercorn version, but recently I went big. Bought this ranch then realized it was a bit boring and needed a little help, so here's what I did.

4-5oz. ranch dressing

4-5oz. basil pesto

1T coriander chutney (a spicy cilantro chutney)

1t granulated garlic

I stirred these together and loved the results. So much that, in addition to a salad dressing, I decided to use it in place of mayonnaise this morning to make tuna-egg salad.

2 hard boiled eggs

2-3 stalks of celery and tops

1/2 med. white onion

2 4.5oz. cans of EVOO packed tuna

Chop the eggs, celery and onion into a medium glass bowl. Add the undrained tuna, chop it up then stir all the ingredients together. Add as much of the basil ranch dressing needed to make everything cohesive. 

Today I had this on half a large pita, split and toasted.

It was excellent. . .Lin