A new favorite

One of our favorite local restaurants has a delicious item on there menu called Baked Hummus. Imagine a pita slathered with hummus, topped with the most random assortment of vegetables, including, but not limited to- carrots, peppers, mushrooms, beans (any kind!), broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, tomatoes and peas. That concoction is topped with cheese, broiled and then given a healthy drizzle of their homemade garlic sauce. In a word: delicious.

Now imagine my delight this past weekend when I created my very own version of Baked Hummus! In my own kitchen! And it didn't cost me $7.50! This is my new favorite meal. It just begs for variation; I've already come up with about 20! We're going to be on a heavy pita-themed rotation around here!

Please, please try to make these! Homemade pitas are infinitely better and make this dish so darn good! You will be so impressed with yourself when you turn these out of the oven. So we started with a homemade pita (and by the way this time I used white whole wheat instead of regular whole wheat and they were even better!) and layered on a healthy spoonful of roasted red pepper hummus. I wanted my kids to eat them so I used veggies I knew they liked as a starting point. Enter a steamer bag of carrots, peas, corn and green beans. That got thrown on top of the hummus. The grown-ups also got sauteed onions and mushrooms and roasted red peppers added to theirs. Then a sprinkle of sharp cheddar and under the broiler they went. Once they came out the pitas were doused with garlic sauce. . It's not even similar to the one from our restaurant, but it was still good and a great contrasting flavor to the rest of the dish. I used this recipe, but would add more garlic next time to up the garlicky-ness!

We all loved this and ate every last bite. I've eaten this three times in as many days and just might fix it for myself again tonight! The possibilities are endless. I can't wait til we have lots of lovely summer produce like eggplant and zucchini and fresh picked tomatoes to add to the delicious mess!

Try it. You'll love it!