A healthy, tasty snack made for your scooping pleasure

I am an inveterate snacker, especially at tea time, which according to our tradition is around late afternoon, or perhaps early evening. This old family habit – actually not just a family’s but a national way of life – has been ingrained in me, as well as my wife Kaisari, from our earlier life in the eastern Indian subcontinent, until we came to live here in 1972.

We are both pretty health-conscious and tend to confine our snacking picks to things that are supposed to be “good” for you – always reading the ingredients list, with Kaisari perhaps more attuned to it.

So when we saw a couple of weeks ago packets of hummus on buy-one-get-one free sale at Publix, where we buy the bulk of our grocery, we jumped at it. Each pack of Sabra singles had six individual servings of 2-ounce mini cups.

And what to scoop up the said hummus with was no problem at all. One of Kaisari’s longtime favorites has been whole-wheat pita bread, especially those made by Toufayan. That is because it has the least number of ingredients.

One use we put these pitas to is make crispy chips – easiest thing to do if you have an oven, and who doesn’t. Even those smaller toaster ovens will work fine for smaller batches. Once made, the spicy chips can be stored in a jar and make a tasty snack any time, with hummus or even peanut butter and other dips.

Here is how to make pita-bread chips.