Explore the benefits of the Mediterranean diet with delicious recipes, nutrition tips, and lifestyle advice - Irini Savva
All in Salads & Vegetables
Eating simple foods with a few inexpensive ingredients will help keep you on track with your healthy eating goals. This Mediterranean black eye bean and spinach bowl is a perfect example. Beans are high in plant protein and fiber, black eye beans in particular are one of the easiest beans to cook because you don’t need to soak them overnight.
This recipe takes me back to last summer when we were enjoying sweet juicy watermelons and salty village halloumi on the beautiful island of Cyprus.
Butter beans are quite “meaty” and filling in this protein packed salad.
When you find a beautiful bunch of rainbow chard, grab it! Also known as Swiss chard, this leafy green with the mesmerisingly colourful stems, is also incredibly nutritious and delicious when cooked very simply.
An anti-inflammatory and hormone balancing green winter salad with creaming tahini dressing.
Kolokythokeftedes [Ko-lo-ki-tho-kef-te-thes]. The name alone sounds like a mouthful but the recipe is a fairly simple and very delicious Greek snack made with seasonal courgettes (or zucchini) and feta cheese.
The Mediterranean is known to be abundant in fruit and vegetables all year round. Having just spent a good part of the summer in Cyprus, I got to sample the summer varieties from everyday tomatoes and cucumbers to juicy peaches, jammy figs and sweet-sour grapes picked off the vines. It’s hard not to miss how seasonal fruits and vegetables often feature as the main ingredient in a meal.
Using grilled halloumi cheese in a salad is not only delicious and filling, but compliments a wide range of seasonal salad vegetables.
Dazzle your guests with an elegant and simple Greek mezze board, or follow our advice on how to prepare one for your next dinner party.
Quinoa is one of the staple carbohydrates in a “free-from” diet. On its own, it’s not the most interesting food to eat, its flavor sits somewhere between couscous and brown rice but when paired with other ingredients and whole foods, it makes a wonderful base for pilafs, a side dish for stews and roasts and an excellent ingredient in salads.
They say learning something new is good for your brain as well as your self-confidence. In celebration of World Food Day, I decided to learn a new recipe using as many locally or regionally sourced ingredients as I could find. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization hopes to achieve zero hunger by wasting less, eating healthier and adopting a more sustainable lifestyle. The recipe, Ratatouille, is ideal as the ingredients are very simple and inexpensive. Fortunately one of my neighbour’s, whose family lives in South of France, was willing to teach me her family’s version of this classic dish.
Turmeric, a powerful anti-inflammatory and gut-healthy spice known for its mild earthy flavour and vibrant yellow colour is lightly dusted onto olive oil tossed potato wedges to make a delicious golden healthier chip alternative.
