Tag: mediterranean diet

This Week’s Menu/Last Week’s Success

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking1 Comment

It’s a sunny “warm” day in Minneapolis and I can just feel my energy levels rising. But fair warning: once it’s golf and “outside” season, my cooking tends to fall off a cliff. When it’s gorgeous here, we make full use of the beautiful weather, which means less time spent around a stove. I’m going to try hard to plan ahead for more slow cooker and Instant Pot meals, plus hearty salads that can withstand the refrigerator for a few days so that we will usually have something healthy to eat. It just might look a little more loosely organized than usual.

So, how did last week’s meal plans go (click here to read last week’s blog and access the recipes)? Great! I mostly adhered to the plan. Monday’s scallops were a bit of a bummer because I accidentally bought the tiny bay scallops instead of the nice big buttery ones. But that family still enjoyed them. Tuesday was a cluster because I was late for everything, and forgot that I would be doing something from 4-5:30. I came home in a bad mood (daylight savings time sucks, and I hate it) and was *thisclose* to bailing on the Sicilian chickpea soup, but my daughter sat and kept me company while I cooked and I’m so glad I did it. The soup was delicious, and cooking usually puts me in a better mood. We did in fact go out Wednesday (happy retirement Mark!) and on Thursday we had more delicious food from Eat for Equity. Friday I made the crock pot corned beef meal, which was so delicious that I ate it for three days straight. Saturday night instead of more Eat for Equity, we ordered in sushi from Ama (so good! We love it there!) and last night I decided to bail on making the casserole because we had Italian Wedding Soup and radicchio salad from E4E that we had planned on eating Saturday. I love it when things work out relatively well. I also realize that committing to something and following through when possible feels great. I did a terrible job of taking photos of my meals, but I did remember to snap one of the Sicilian chickpea soup!

Sicilian Chickpea Soup

This week is wonky due to a lot of different activities, so I’m going to try to roll with it even if we aren’t all eating together.

MONDAY – This Kathleen Ashmore salad with garlic naan. My daughter has a dentist appointment at dinner time and then I’m going to play paddle, so this salad will be available for whomever.

TUESDAY – This crock pot Mediterranean lentil stew served over brown rice.

WEDNESDAY – My husband is out at a basketball game and I don’t know that my daughter will be home either, so I’m designating it a “fend night”. There will be leftovers available so will probably dig into those.

THURSDAY – Eat for Equity!

FRIDAY – Order in or eat out

SATURDAY – Eat for Equity

SUNDAY – Penne with roasted tomatoes served with a warm spinach salad (from the America’s Test Kitchen Complete Mediterranean Cookbook). Try this similar penne recipe one, which looks delicious. And this similar spinach salad recipe.

And I think that’s it! I hope you have a delicious week!

What I Cooked Last Week/What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, health, Health and wellness, high cholesterol, mediterannean, Nutrition, Recipes1 Comment

I have been really enjoying having my meal plan set each week, as well as having the time and energy to actually adhere to it. That wasn’t alway the case, so if it’s not in the cards for you these days to stick to a meal plan, don’t worry. I’m in a season of life where it’s possible and also fun for me to cook a lot. We’ve gone through seasons where we were doing a lot of “fending” for ourselves, or scraping together whatever, or picking up dinner on the way home. The best way to ensure you hate cooking is to hold yourself to some arbitrary standard that doesn’t fit in with your current life.

So, if you’ll remember from last week’s post, I planned to make roast cod with chermoula and broccolini on Monday, peanut and veggie soup from the freezer on Tuesday, pasta with zucchini and tomatoes with a salad with Marcona almonds and manchego cheese on Wednesday, Eat for Equity on Thursday and Saturday (we got hot pot! Some beef and some vegan with tofu), over to friends on Friday and Crappy Dinner Party on Sunday. How did it go? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday went according to plan. When I went to make the pasta on Wednesday, I realized I didn’t have enough fresh tomatoes, so I broke out a jar of Rao’s (seriously, it really is the best tasting jarred pasta you can get, and it’s available at Costco) and did a little riffing. It turned out delicious. Make sure to check out the post from last week if you want recipes. So, what didn’t go according to plan? By Saturday we had eaten most of the Eat for Equity food, our daughter was out, and we had hosted friends for cocktails and bites (olives, cheese and crackers, veggies and hummus) so we didn’t need a full dinner. I had a bowl of Trader Joe’s O’s cereal. Sunday, our Crappy Dinner Party was postponed so we pivoted and ordered from one of our favorite places, Edina Grill. We got two Thai chicken and brown rice bowls (so delicious) and a chopped Italian salad. Here are some photos from dinners last week.

Cod with chermoula, white beans with herbed oil, and broccolini.
Vegan Hot Pot from Eat for Equity, topped with kimchi.
Whole wheat spaghetti with zucchini and pine nuts.

On to this week’s plan. All recipes are from America’s Test Kitchen Complete Mediterranean Cookbook, but I have found the same or very similar recipe links elsewhere. As you can see, my pattern is to make dinner Mon/Tues/Wednesday and then the rest of the week is sort of loosey goosey. We are so lucky to have Eat for Equity to fill in some gaps, and I keep stuff in the freezer and pantry that we can make meals out of.

MONDAY – Farrotto with pancetta, asparagus and peas, and an arugula and pear salad with goat cheese

TUESDAY – Tuscan bean soup with bruschetta

WEDNESDAY – Seared scallops with orange lime dressing and skillet-roasted cauliflower with capers and pine nuts

THURSDAY – Eat for Equity

FRIDAY – Either more Eat for Equity, or go out

SATURDAY – Pizza and paddle (click here if you’re wondering what paddle tennis is. We play it in the winter here in Minnesota).

SUNDAY – TBD, not sure if we are doing Crappy Dinner Party. It’s the Oscars so maybe we will do something fun around that.

I hope you all have a great week ahead and feed yourselves well, whatever that means to you.

What I Cooked Last Week/What I Plan To Cook This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn Cooking, Health and wellness, Nutrition, Recipes2 Comments

I got a lot of interest in my meal planning post last week. And it makes sense. There are some weeks when I sit down to plan the menu for the week and I think “What do I even cook?” My mind just goes completely blank. It’s nice to see what other people are doing with their cooking lives and get new ideas.

First things first: how closely did my actual cooking life last week resemble the plan? I give myself an 9/10. The only change was that on Wednesday I made homemade chicken noodle soup out of the leftover roast chicken because my kiddo wasn’t feeling well. (FYI, if your celery is looking anemic and bendy, throw it in some soup instead of tossing it in the garbage or compost). So I punted on the coconut curry until Thursday, which punted the Eat For Equity meal until Friday. Which means on Friday instead of going out or ordering in, we assembled the most amazing shrimp po’ boys topped with coleslaw made with miso dressing and collards with raisins. We were supposed to go out with friends Saturday but that stupid cold that’s going around foiled our plans, so while our daughter was out, we ate Po’ Boy leftovers and watched the Yellowstone prequel 1923. This time we also ate braised butter beans along with it, also from Eat For Equity. And tonight, we are going out, an usual plan for us for Sunday evening. Anyway, maybe I should give myself an 11/10 for cooking an additional meal this week. Here are some photos of the things we ate. As I keep saying, I’m not a professional blogger who curates amazing photos. I’m a real person who doesn’t have the patience to stage a photo, so you’ll see real-life depictions of what food actually looks like.

Coconut Curry Lentils
Oven roasted garlic
Burst tomato pasta with basil and parmesan

This week, I plan on making the following (they are all from the America’s Test Kitchen The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook so I’ll provide similar recipe links. OR you can buy the book or pay to have access to the recipes online):

MONDAY: Roast cod with chermoula (a sauce made with cilantro and other delicious things), and broccolini with garlic and red pepper flakes.

TUESDAY: I’m chaperoning my daughter’s Model United Nations conference and then playing paddle (if you don’t know, definitely watch the video link. It’s such a fun winter sport!) Tuesday late afternoon, so I’ll be pulling out a peanut stew with winter vegetables from the freezer that I ordered from Eat for Equity. The recipe is from Bryant Terry’s Afro Vegan Cookbook. I plan on serving it with toasted sourdough.

WEDNESDAY: Pasta with zucchini and tomatoes and pine nuts, served with a green salad with Marcona almonds and manchego cheese.

THURSDAY: Eat For Equity

FRIDAY: Out

SATURDAY: Eat For Equity

SUNDAY: Crappy Dinner Party (if you don’t know about this yet, read about it here). It’s our turn to host, and I’m thinking maybe my husband can smoke something in our smoker, TBD).

I also plan on making a chopped salad with chickpeas along the way for lunch. Something like this but with my leftover goat cheese instead of feta. As usual, I will also probably eat avocado toast with an easy salad once or twice. Here’s a photo of what my lunches look like most days.

I hope you all have a delicious and healthy week ahead.

What I Cooked This Week

On By Cultivate WellnessIn CookingLeave a comment

Hi. It’s been a while. Bloggers who explain their long absences annoy me, so I’ll just start writing instead.

It was Valentine’s Day this week, and after 21 years of marriage and a husband who really doesn’t want more things, I decided instead to make a heart healthy Mediterranean inspired dinner. It consisted of this roasted salmon, this marinated lentils and butternut squash, this broccolini, a quick caprese salad (throw in baby tomatoes, mozzarella pearls, fresh basil, and season with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. Toss with s+p), and this apple crumble with a bit of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream. I like HD because there are minimal, real ingredients (the vanilla contains only cream, skim milk, egg yolk, sugar, vanilla). Pictured here is everything besides the apple crumble. It took me several hours of cooking on and off to make this. A true labor of love.

My husband’s cholesterol is *high* recently thanks to genetics, and mine isn’t ideal either, so we have been more focused than ever on eating more heart healthy dishes. How can you, a nutritionist who loves to eat healthy, have *high* cholesterol, you might ask. Well first of all, there was a whole pandemic that upended everything. We were not immune to comfort eating (and drinking), high levels of stress, and all the things. Also, sometimes it’s just what happens. You can eat almost all the right things and still have high cholesterol.

One way to address high cholesterol through your diet is to read up on the Mediterranean Diet (when I say “diet” in this sense, it’s a way of eating and not a calorie restriction plan). Full of whole foods, lots of fruits and veggies, whole grains, moderate amounts of lean meats and fish, tons of herbs and spices, and healthy fats like olive oil and avocados, the Med diet is recommended and prescribed by doctors and nutritionists the world over for its heart healthy benefits. And there’s a saying that what’s good for the heart is also good for the brain, so if you have Alzheimer’s or dementia concerns, this diet is also probably a really good one to look into.

There’s a website called Oldways that has tons of free resources, including the Med Diet pyramid. There are also cookbooks galore out there. I just treated myself to this one by America’s Test Kitchen. I can’t wait to start making some recipes this weekend. I like American’s Test Kitchen because they explain to you the “why’s” behind everything.

If you’re looking to make some quick and simple Med inspired meals, you do not need to cook all day. Two nights ago for dinner I whipped up a very quick marinated white bean salad to serve over grilled sourdough. We had a Zoom meeting to attend at dinnertime so it was a pretty minimal meal that we ate in front of the computer. Into two cans of rinsed cannellini beans, I threw in some red wine vinegar and olive oil to taste. Chopped some marinated cherry peppers and threw those in, minced some garlic and parsley, and sprinkled some dried oregano. Seasoned with s+p and called it a day. It was so delicious (although I think five cloves of garlic was probably a bit much 🤣). It took all of 5-10 minutes to make.

This weekend I plan to make a chopped salad with garbanzo beans as well as an asparagus, red bell pepper, and goat cheese salad. Inflation is doing a number on all of our grocery purchases, but because I rarely buy meat I’m able to offset a little bit on cost. I’ll circle back next week with those recipes if they are any good!

Until then…