Chicken Salad in Pita Pockets

Tonight's kitchen experiment was a bit unintended, though it came together well - albeit a bit late. For whatever reason, I decided to marinate and grill two packages of chicken this week, so I had a lot of cooked chicken. A friend of mine makes the most delicious chicken salad, and thinking about it gave me a hankering for it. I've also wanted to try my hand at making pita pockets - and the two certainly go well together! The recipe:

Maxine's Chicken Salad

6-8 cooked and cooled boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 green onions (white and green parts)
3 stalks celery (use the ends too)

In food processor, chop chicken, remove, and then chop onion & celery together. Add to the chicken. Add Miracle Whip until desired consistency. Add salt, pepper, cayenne pepper (sparingly...you want just enough so that you get barely a taste after a bite of salad!) and basil to taste.

May add red grapes and/or chopped nuts if desired. Or, for a change, serve with chopped tomatoes & bacon on top.

Maxine notes that you really do want to chop the chicken and celery separately - or else you end up with green chicken! I don't keep Miracle Whip on hand, so I used mayo and added a bit of sugar and vinegar.

Unfortunately I didn't plan ahead well enough, and Hubs had to head out to mow hay before I finished the pita pockets. Too bad, because they're pretty good! I used a recipe from Tammy's Recipes. There is a whole wheat version as well, but I figured I'd better start easy. My biggest problems were that I can't roll out in a circle, and keeping Goose from doing too much damage as she was standing on the chair, "helping" me. If I'd have given it just a bit more thought, I could have used extra cooling racks to bake more than two at a time and spent just a bit less time in front of a very hot oven.

I think I'll make these again, though I'd double the recipe (now that I'm more or less comfortable with it) and put the extras in the freezer. To keep me humble, I tried giving Goose a bite and all she got was chicken salad, which she'd have spit out if she knew how. Must be a texture thing? Who knows.

We hit a used book sale this morning in one of the nearby "cities" (they're really just pretty big towns) and came out with a lot of books for just under $25. When I went to organize them, I was pleased to discover that I remembered correctly - I had volume one of a set of children's books and found volumes two through five. In fact, it made me wonder if I ought not try to talk Hubs into going back tomorrow to see if I can complete any of my other sets! Something tells me he won't go for it, and rightly so, I suppose . . .

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!