My Mediterranean Cooking

 

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Here goes my latest cooking experitments; “African Peanut Soup", a delicious all plant dish, containing 130 Calories in a bowl serving. I prepared it in 30 minutes(did not use potatoes as suggested in many recipes). 
Family and friends enjoyed it with freshly toasted whole-wheat bread

Peanut Soup is a popular Mediterranean Diet, no I don’t mean diet as in ‘dieting’. Mediterranean Diet can be explained as healthy way of eating and lifestyle, recommended by leading scientist and Harvard School of Public Health, as one of the healthiest in the world. 

Mediterranean diet is based on the dietary traditions of Crete, Greece and southern Italy from 60s at a time when the rates of chronic disease among people were lowest in the world, average life expectancy was the highest despite limited medical services.

Mediterranean Food Pyramid

Major part of meals should comprise of fresh vegetable. Best in the form of raw salads, sauted, or steamed.

Vegetable Wrap, a great meal on the go, for office and school lunches. I use a whole wheat chapatti add freshly cut vegetable any available and optional few chunks of cottage cheese and olives..

The Mediterranean diet emphasizes:

• Regular exercise, and or physical activities like sports
• Major part of daily meals should be plant-based foods, such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes (lentils and beans) and nuts
• Replacing butter with healthy fats such as olive oil, sunflower and canola oil
• Using herbs, lemon juice and spices instead of salt to flavor foods
• Restricting the red meat to a few times a month
• Eating fish and poultry at least twice a week
• Drinking plenty of water
• The diet also emphasizes on enjoying meals with family and friends.

Pan grilled chicken breast fillet marinated in Italian mixed herbs.

To go with the soup for main course I cooked this pleasant meal of a low calorie delicious and quickly prepared, pan grilled chicken breast marinated in lemon pepper and Italian herbs. I served this with lightly sautéd eggplants and squash with oven roasted garlic flakes, lemon juice and herbs like rosemary and thyme in olive oil.

Total meal is 220-260 calories average.

Seafood and Poultry twice a week

Mediterranean diet is a good way of loosing weight and keeping safe from and for support in treatment of cardiovascular and many other diseases.

Here are a very authentic and trusted set of recipes Mediterranean Cooking. This is my reference for experimenting with Mediterranean Cooking.

Another useful site for Med Recipes.