Here’s a very simple lunch suggestion: toasted pita bread and houmous with salad. I grow my own salad and intend to make my own houmous and pita bread but, erm, haven’t quite got around to that yet. If you don’t know, pita is a round pocket bread widely consumed in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines. It is prevalent from North Africa through the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The “pocket” in pita bread is created by steam, which puffs up the dough. It freezes well and doesn’t take up much space.
No oven or utensils required for pitta bread! A food we've eaten for 4,100 years can't be bad...
Stick the pita bread under the grill or in the toaster. Don’t wait for it to change colour dramatically. If it does, you’ve ruined it. It should just get very hot and become stiffened. It only takes a couple of minutes. Asda Pita Bread has 4 Weightwatchers ProPoints per ‘slice’. I’d use a couple of slices per person.
When it’s toasted, use scissors to cut it into strips (soldiers, if you’re young at heart). Careful not to burn your fingers…
A piece of bread in the pocket is better than a feather in the hat
Once toasted, add it to your plate which should already have a healthily large pile of salad and a dollop of houmous. I tend to include tomatoes in with the salad. They go very well with toasted pita and houmous. The tomatoes and the salad have zero Weightwatchers ProPoints. 100g of Tesco’s own brand houmous contains 9 Weightwatchers ProPoints. 100g is a pretty generous helping. You could easily have a great lunch with only 50g of houmous. Frankly, 100g is decadent.
Woah! Are you listening...?!! I said 50g! Per person... What? You've lots of friends... oh, okay...
By the way, there are a number of different spellings of houmous. The main alternative spelling is hummus. There’s about half a dozen variations.
This is finger food. Stuff the salad into your mouth by hand and dip the toasted pita strips into the houmous before eating. Assuming you’ve not been greedy and have only used 50g of houmous and two slices of pita, this meal has 12.5 Weightwatchers ProPoints per person. Don’t forget to go mad with the salad, which is easier to do if you grow your own.