Lo-Cal Pita Chips

Can you say, "hot"....no how about, "HOT!" It was 102 degrees F yesterday at 6:00 pm and when I woke up this morning it was 80 degrees F at 6:00 am!  I don't know about you but when it's roasting outside, I don't like to be stuck in the kitchen.  I prefer to make things like spicy hummus: a handful of ingredients and no heat required.  Veggies are always great lo-cal dippers but sometimes a good cracker or chip is what you want.  How do you satisfy your chip craving while keeping your calorie consumption in check?  Make some Pita chips!  Most recipes have you brushing olive oil on your chips but I omitted the oil and did this instead.......

As you can see, I picked up a package of whole wheat pita breads that were a day old...hence price reduced.  The package contained 6 pitas (each pita has 100 calories)

I preheated my oven to 375 degrees F.  While it was pre-heating, I lined my baking sheets with parchment paper.  Using kitchen shears, I cut each pita into 8 pieces (see left picture).  Starting at the point, I opened up each pita triangle and they broke at the seam, making 2 traingles (see right picture).  So, one pita makes 16 chips (for just 100 calories!)

I spread the chips across my pans.  Then using my fingers, I lightly sprinkled water on the pita triangles.   In my experiment, on 2/3s (2 cookie sheets) of my chips I sprinkled cinnamon and on 1/3 (1 cookie sheet) I sprinkled garlic powder. I baked the chips for 10 minutes or until lightly toasted.

Wow, look how many chips I made. They are light and crunchy and one bag of 6 pitas made 96 pita chips and for less than $1!  The bowl on the right contains the garlic chips...great with spicy hummus.  The bowl on the left contains the cinnamon pita chips.  Check back to see just how I used these! 

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