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lpinkmountain

Help with pita appetizer

lpinkmountain
10 years ago

I'm hosting a small dinner party at my small house. I always serve some kind of appetizer before the meal and the way I usually do it is put it on the coffee table in the middle of the (tiny) living room. My house is a row house so you're either in the dining room or the living room, and both are tiny. I've found that if I spread the appetizers all around both rooms folks don't get up and move around and eat different ones. But when they are in the center of the room and everyone is watching you take them, I don't want something fussy like chips and dip. I've tried that and it never gets eaten. So I want something that you can just pick up and eat. But I also want to use up this big bag of pita bread I bought. It is not the thick kind of pita bread that you could skewer, it is the very thin kind. It's large and thin.

So I want to maybe bake/toast it and then spread some kind of spread on it and then slice it into wedges. I'm thinking roasted eggplant dip garnished with red pepper, or maybe even guacamole so it would look like a Christmas tree. The only thing I can't figure out is how to manage the pita bread so it works for this, since it is so thin. I'm wondering if I should slice it into wedges and then toast it, or toast it whole, spread the topping on and then cut it into triangles. That would be a whole lot easier than dolling up each individual pita wedge. I'm just afraid if I toast it and then cut it, the pita will shatter instead of slicing cleanly. But I have to toast it pretty crisp or it won't hold up to the topping. I could also maybe roll it up and slice it like I do with flatbread, in which case I'm not sure either eggplant dip or guacamole is substantial enough to fill the rolls. Ham and swiss, which I often do with flatbread roll ups, is out because I am serving ham at the dinner. Cheese is pretty much out because I am also serving white lasagne as a side.

Anyway, has anyone out there made a successful grab and go appetizer with this type of thin pita bread? Suggestions welcome.

I don't HAVE to use this pita bread, but this will be the ideal setting to use it up. I could just season it and serve the chips with some dip and the bolder folks would dip and the others could just eat it plain. Or I could ditch all this and serve ants on a log, which was my other idea, lol! I'd like to serve shrimp cocktail but I just can't justify the expense.

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