Greek Out!

Nothing like a little al fresco dining, Greek style.  Michael and I love Mediterranean cuisine.  We consider it our go-to cuisine when we want to eat healthy and fresh in the summer.  And really, who doesn't want that?

Pictured here is a quickly assembled bulgur wheat salad, tossed with 'campari' tomatoes, chopped cucumbers, mint, parsley, and chick peas.  The whole thing is lightly dressed with a lemon-olive oil dressing and topped with spicy toasted almond slivers and perhaps just a very moderate dusting of crumbled feta cheese.  Michael insisted on a little yogurt dressing on the side and we threw on some kalamata and Cerignola olives for good measure.  I was quite glad he chose to include the yogurt dressing because it really is lovely no matter what you serve it with.

Mike's Yogurt Dressing
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
1/2 cup low fat mayonnaise
2-3 finely minced cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp dill
1/4 tsp oregano
1 small handful of chopped fresh mint
1 small handful of chopped fresh parsley
1/8 tsp kosher salt
a few grinds fresh black pepper

Add all ingredients to medium sized bowl, stir it up, serve with your favorite Greek dishes.  Use as a dip for veggies.

Abbey's Spicy Almond Slivers
(makes just enough for a couple big salads)
1/4 cup almond slivers
drizzle of olive oil
pinch of kosher salt
pinch each of the following spices:  paprika, ground cumin, cayenne pepper.

Combine all ingredients in a saute pan on medium heat.  Toss the nuts around until well coated with spices and oil.  Continue tossing for 3-5 mins until nuts are looking toasty.  Remove to a dry clean plate to cool.  Sprinkle on salads, savory dishes, or just snack on them!

More fun with Greek food

Salads- done right, it's hard to argue with the appropriateness of a salad for the main course of a meal if you are trying to be healthy. Not only so most salads feature prominent vegetables (at least those conceived since the sixties), but also you will absorb fewer calories. Unfortunately you also absorb fewer nutrients, so it's good to use nutrient-dense greens like spinach and romaine lettuce. Actually the salad below uses iceberg, but that's all I had on hand.



When A suggested "greek salad" for lunch, I was gung-ho because Greek cuisine has been of special interest to me lately. I decided to compensate for a lack of a good olive in the house by making it more like a farmer's salad; the balance more on the chunky vegegetables and less on the lettuce. Greek farmer's salad minimally consists of sliced tomatoes, bell peppers and onions in an oregano-y vinaigrette (sometimes with marinated green beans and hard-boiled eggs) and feta. If it contained pieces of flat bread, we'd be talking about the Lebanese treat known as Fattoush. For dressing I wanted to try something other than my usual lemon and olive oil vinagrette with oregano, something with some added dimension, perhaps a bit more authentic. I loved the idea of whizzing green peppers in the dressing as detailed on the wonderful Kopiaste blog. (I actually found this recipe in its blogspot incarnation.) It was well worth the effort as you can see. I decorated with pieces of toasted organic french bread (LaBrea, store-bought, nonfat, no extra junk added). In retrospect I think I forgot to add onions, but it was tasty and filling.

It would be a drag if the old Kopiaste blog disappeared one day and the dressing recipe along with it. I made it exactly as specified:

Greek Salad Dressing


Ingredients

* ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
* 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
* 3- 4 tablespoons lemon juice
* 1 clove of garlic
* Bell peppers, fresh or frozen (red, yellow, orange) about 2 – 3 spoonfuls (I used frozen)
* 1 piece of feta cheese 4 x 4 x 3 cm
* ½ teaspoon salt
* ½ teaspoon oregano
* Black pepper, to taste

Directions

Place in a food processor and puree all ingredients. Taste and adjust flavour according to your taste.

You can find inspiration in the darnedest places

Upon seeing the Barbie Diaries movie for, I dunno, maybe the fifth time, I ended up actually listening to some of the dialogue, and one of Barbie's messages resonated hopefully with me: "all you have to do is write something down, and like magic, it comes true."

I've been wanting something to come true for many years now. Maybe I need to write it down to make it come true.

I've experimented sporadically with healthier cooking, but in the meantime I've maintained all my bad old habits. Impulse eating. Caving to cravings. Over-eating my favorite foods. My conscious mind knows continually eating the wrong things is not the key to happiness and longevity. Yet, i will think of a food i want to eat and my mouth will being to water, and I feel an irresistable urge to seek it out. I think recent studies regarding the chemistry of salt, fat and sugar cravings provide the perfect explanation: what I experience feels just how I would expect to feel in light of the findings. I've often felt it might be some kind of unfulfilled, infantile craving that has nothing to do with food, but, you know, I like the idea of dopamine production dependence on food cravings better, because it's something I feel equipped to combat.

Stocking the wrong sorts of foods: this is a special challenge if you're a parent. I've admired the blogs of people whose kids have a miraculous love of healthy foods. If you are a consistent, conscientious person who has complete control over what your kids eat and only feed them good food to begin with, then this is easier to achieve; Kids will eat whatever is available, eventually. Sadly, if you don't have total control (daycares; grandparents), you have to do battle with these influences. I've become determined to only stock foods that are worth eating. I expect this to perhaps be the hardest part of my transformation.

We had already resolved to make as many meals at home as possible. Better and better for you. This we have more or less accomplished. We do cave occasionally to a few favorite dishes at restaurants (Paddy Malone's Mushroom Fries and Arris' Greek family style pizza are just about it though). Mostly we cook for ourselves.

This made responding to a recent change in circumstances a bit easier. My wife had a gall bladder attack and subsequent surgery. We had to start eating fat-free, immediately. As my wife so rightly said, I've been researching this topic for years, but have never been able to translate it into a lifestyle. We like a wide variety of foods and have flirted with the idea of vegetarianism and pescetarianism. In the end we decided it might be too early in the process to deny ourselves who categories of foods (though I grapple with the moral and environmental qualms of meat eating all the time). So these dishes are really more of a flexitarian nature than anything- primarily good old fruits, vegetables and whole grains with occasional forays into lean meats and not-so-whole grains.



So, it's been almost a month now, and this short time, we have accumulated many good ways to cook fatfree. Some have suggested by others (in particular Dean Ornish); others we developed by trial and error. I must say we have both been very pleased with the results. Dishes deprived of their fats taste much better than expected; in many cases, better than the original. I found so many ways I used fat in cooking that have turned out to be totally unnecessary. Others I found a spray of Pam works just as well as a couple of tablespoons or more that I customarily used in many dishes.

Some I have not been able to perfect. One miserable failure in my mind is fried rice. I'm sure it is possible, though; I think I overcooked the rice, and so many dishes brown perfectly in a good non-stick pan, better than I thought they would, so I do think there is hope.

Did I say stocking the wrong sorts of foods would be the hardest part? I forgot about exercise. That is going to be the hardest thing for me. I've been a devoted couch spud for many years now. I used to love biking and tennis; as I aged and circumstances changed, I've gained weight, lost muscle, and developed Morton's Neuroma in my feet, which has slowed me down even more. I'm hoping to stage a revival of these former hobbies, along with more foot-friendly forms of activity.

Turkey "falafel" with Tzatziki sauce

This is the dish that made me realize our little experiment is finally producing very pleasant results, results that might actually help other guys who have a similar desire to live a healthier life. It has to be reinforced by positive experiences, and of all our efforts to date, this has been the most successful.

Turkey falafel




I used Saad Fayed's excellent Falafel recipe on About.com.

All I did is substitute 16 oz. of ground turkey for the chick peas. I shaped them into small patties and my wife lovingly sauteed them in our handy-dandy large non-stick skillet with just a spritz of Pam (cover maybe 2/3 of the pan) on medium heat. Lay them in gently and leave them alone for five minutes. check one of them; they should be browning nicely. Flip and repeat.

Tzatziki Sauce



half a cucumber, peeled, sliced and seeded
2 cloves garlic
heaping tablespoon of dried dill weed
couple pinches salt
1/2 to 3/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt
juice of 1/2 lemon

put it all in a food processor and puree until smooth. The key to a successful tzatziki (okay, maybe second to correct proportions and good seasoning) is to make sure the cucumbers are seeded. just take the whole center part out, use only the solid parts. It won't be watery and icky if you do that.