leftover delight

as someone who wastes a lot of food and doesn't plan weekly menus in advance to get the most bang for her buck, I'm always happy when recipe ingredients come together from what I already have in the fridge. When grilling the chicken for the Chicken Shawarmas (last post), I had dh bbq a couple extra chicken breasts (remaining from the large Costco boneless chicken pack). I was happy to come upon this Mediterranean Chicken Salad Pitas recipe in the same Cooking Light (July 08). It calls for cooked chicken, Greek yogurt (it called for whole, but I used the 2% one from the Shawarmas) and pita bread! woo hoo! all of which I had in stock. Actually, I even had remaining red pepper, salad greens (I used romaine instead of Bibb) and red onion. I feel so virtuous when I'm not wasting stuff (especially fresh vegetables, which often end up in my green bin.)

The only things I needed to buy were the chickpeas and green olives. I usually have green olives since I really, really love olives, but I've been not indulging lately, so no olives. I've also been wanting to work more beans and lentils and chickpeas into my diet, so I was happy to find that I needed some for this recipe. To make this post even more happily braggy, I actually walked- an over hour long walk over very hilly terrain to the store to buy the chickpeas. So...APs earned + unwasted food = braggy Janet.

The salad pictured above looks a little wet (sorry), but this IS supposed to be a creamy salad- like the kind my mom always used to make that I wasn't crazy about as a kid. (Sorry Mom!) The magazine one looks creamier- maybe because of the full fat yogurt? and food-making and food picture taking-experts?

I, again, had the larger pitas (re my post the other day), so instead of the two pita pockets per person, I had a single large one. You are supposed to also get one cup of the salad and I misread and did 3/4 of a cup, so in fact, you get more salad than shown. (woo hoo) My family did NOT enjoy this concoction, by the way, but I very much did- happily eating leftovers and chickpeas. I even had it again today for lunch. (8 points)