Use Your Booty: BLT Fattoush

I really like bread salads. They're a great way to showcase fresh vegetables. Panzanella is the bread salad that I make most often; it requires a hearty, rustic loaf, which I don't always have on hand. Fattoush is a bread salad made with fried or toasted pita bread. Traditionally fattoush is pita with parsley, tomato, onion and herbs.

I actually wanted to make BLT sandwiches for dinner, but had so sandwich-suitable bread in the kitchen. I did have a bag of pita chips left over from an event earlier in the week, so I decided to use them as the base for a fattoush salad. The devilled eggs are definitely a non-traditional garnish as is the addition of bacon.

The fattoush formula is very adaptable to whatever's in the pantry. It's a great "sponge" for bits of leftover cooked and raw vegetables. I like the pita to be about 1/3 of the total salad, but you should feel free to find your own perfect ratio of pita to vegetables.

No recipe today, just a guide:

BLT Fattoush

For each person you're serving, combine in a large bowl:

• 2 handfuls of torn lettuce leaves
• 1/2 cup of coarsely chopped tomato
• 1-2 slices of cooked bacon
• a few slices of very thinly sliced onion
• 1-2 handfuls pita chips, crushed lightly

Dress generously (the chips will soak up a lot of dressing) with a lemon or red wine vinegar-based vinaigrette. Season with salt and pepper.

This Summer, I am chronicling my first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) experience. My CSA share is from Arrowhead Farm, a farm based in Newburyport, MA. Each week, I am posting about what was in my share and what I'm doing with it. By way of full disclosure, I won my share through a raffle and am not paying for it. However, Arrowhead did not know I was entered in the raffle, and I received no special consideration because of this blog. I paid for my livestock share. A full set of all the photos I've taken of this share is here.