Favorite Healthy-ier Lunches

My favorite healthy lunch is veggie stuffed pitas.

Pita bread from Baba's foods at the Farmer's Market (Wed & Sat) in my city (or online) and their spinach and feta hummus spread (get any pita bread or hummus though). I find the pita bread from this vendor lasts longer than what I've purchased at Henry's or Trader Joe's. 

Grab some heirloom tomatoes, english cucumbers, red onion (or any kind of onion), fresh lemon juice from 1/2 of a lemon, some rosemary/thyme or your favorite fresh herbs, and feta cheese (I like feta!). 

Cut up all veggies into small bite sized pieces. While prepping veggies, heat your oven or if you have a toaster oven to 350 degrees. Put some EVOO on the pitas and pop into oven for about 5 minutes. Spread the hummus over the pitas once slightly cooled then stuff the pitas with your veggie mix and top with additional feta (optional), fold and eat. Bon Appetito!

You can make the tomato mixture large enough to have this for lunch or a healthy snack 3 or 4 times. The pitas come in a 5 pack at Baba's and you can get any 1 item for $4 or any 3 items for $10. Their pitas and hummus spreads do not have any artificial colors, preservatives, etc. 

Veggie Pita(In my pita, I also sliced seedless red grapes in with the veggies to give it a little sweetness.) 

Hummus is also good (some brands are far better than others) when you serve it with fresh cut veggies. Try hummus with carrots. YUM!

Chipotle is good - I always get their veggie bowls. Always enough of a "serving" to eat for 2 meals. 

I carry a BPA free water pitcher around to keep either fresh water in or fruit infused water. Drink at least half your weight in ounces daily. Best for hydration but also when you're not getting enough water, your body will seem hungry when it really is thirsty. 

Veggie Pizza

I stumbled upon a recipe for "Fresh Veggie Pizza" the other day and thought, what a great concept. The bread is cooked but all the veggies are fresh. I had heard of something similar before with Pampered Chef at one of their product presentations. The recipe that I had found initially asked for Pillsbury crescent rolls for the bread but these rolls have either HFCS and/or hydrogenated oils and sometimes artificial colors. Other recipes called for making your own pizza dough and I'm not that confident with breads yet so I requested some suggestions on my "The HFCS-FREE Challenge" fan page on Facebook. A few said to pick up the ready made pizza bread or to use English Muffins in place of the pizza bread and make miniature pizzas. Then ah ha!! A light bulb went off in my head and I remembered my favorite pita bread company of all time at the local Farmer's Market. They sell hummus too. I usually make a heirloom tomato salad to stuff the pitas with but this time I knew I could use them for my veggie pizzas.

So tonight it started out that I coated the pita bread with EVOO and baked it for 10 minutes at 325 degrees. It came out slightly crispy around the edges and soft in the middle - perfect! I cut up some yellow bell peppers, broccoli, squash and zucchini to be used as the toppings. I had a lot of squash and zucchini left over so I decided to roast the remaining with EVOO, minced garlic and thyme with rosemary mix for about 10 minutes. When the extra veggies were roasting the pita was cooling. When I smelled the veggies roasting and saw the raw veggies with no seasoning in the bowl, I decided to use the roasted veggies instead.

Once the pita was cooled, I spread some artichoke feta hummus over the top and then sprinkled the pita with all the roasted veggies. I added a pinch of sea salt and voila! It was complete. I put the extra fresh veggies in the fridge for use tomorrow.

It's a green and yellow theme but goodness the flavor was delish. Of course you may use any variant of veggies you prefer. My fridge is stocked full of many different veggies and I simply love zucchini and squash together that I thought I'd just do the two color combinations.

Buon Appetito!!

Recap of ingredients:
Baba's Foods Mediterranean (BFM) Pita Bread heated at 325 with EVOO;
BFM Artichoke Feta Hummus spread on bread once cooled;
Zucchini, Squash, Broccoli and Yellow Pepper roasted at 325 with EVOO, minced garlic and thyme & rosemary;
sprinkled with sea salt.