Healthy Mediterranean Pasta Dishes for One or More

Pasta is loved all over the world, and some of the most beloved pasta dishes are part of traditional Mediterranean cuisine. Cooked and tossed with olive oil, garlic, one or more regional cheeses or a tomato and herb sauce, noodles are never better. With vibrant natural ingredients used in Mediterranean cooking and the whole grain and vegetable noodle choices, pasta is one of the most healthful and delicious options for dinner.

For the Family

The entire family can enjoy vegetable spaghetti tossed with a great tomato-based sauce. Young children love learning to eat the long noodles. For the sauce, tomato puree is simmered with garlic, onion, peppers of choice and oregano as well as olive oil, olives, and mushrooms. Salt is added to taste. Grated parmesan scattered on top just before serving finishes this easy and wonderful dish.  Warmed Italian or whole grain bread with garlic butter and a leafy green salad completes the meal.

For Romance

For an easy romantic dinner, pasta is one of the best choices.  The spaghetti works, but other Italian pasta options can make the evening special like manicotti. This dish with large tube noodles stuffed with a mixture of ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheese seasoned with garlic, basil, oregano and marjoram is delicious. Fill two or three per person and lie flat in a baking dish. Smother the stuffed noodles with spaghetti or pizza sauce and grated parmesan cheese and bake covered until noodles are cooked at about 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 40 minutes.  Uncover and brown the cheese under broiler and serve warm. Serve with a tossed salad and have gelato and chocolates for dessert.

Pasta for One

Even one person can enjoy pasta at home. Noodles cook up nicely in small and large batches, and re-heating noodles does not ruin the texture or taste.  In fact, Italian herbs and flavors combine for even more robust flavors the next day. Lasagne and other pasta dishes also freeze nicely so a full-sized recipe made on one day can be divided in portions and frozen for several meals. Such cooking for one saves time and effort, and the quality of the food is not usually diminished in the least by freezing.

Healthy and Delicious Italian Pasta

A good balance of protein, vegetables and grains make complete meals. Eaten in moderation, pasta is a carbohydrate that can be a part of a nutritious meal. Many whole grain noodles on the market today cook up to look, taste and feel just like the enriched noodles.  Choosing whole grain or rice and corn alternative pastas do help to keep the diet balanced, especially when eating noodles more than once a week.  Tossed and served with generous amounts of Mediterranean-style vegetables, herbs and olive oil, Italian pasta makes a healthy and delicious meal choice.

A Greek Meal You Can Make

When it comes to fantastic Mediterranean cuisine, no choice is better than a Greek meal. The diet coming from the land of Greece is basic and full of robust flavour. Proteins are generously and artfully combined with vegetables, whole grain breads and olives. Herbs are almost always put to good use for enhancing food with rich flavors and aromas. Have you ever eaten Greek food at a restaurant?  If you love Greek food, you can make it at home for yourself and your family.

1-2-3 Meal

Three easy components make a meal that is not complicated but richly sumptuous to the palate and so satisfying. For a meal featuring the cuisine of Greece, simple and fabulous foods and flavors come together. These three are starters called meze, marinated and grilled meat as the main course and an easy dessert.

Start with Meze

The starters or meze are small individual dishes with attractive small servings in them. You can serve more than one if you or your family like more variety with the meal or have a big appetite. One option is to slice or dice fresh tomatoes, cucumbers and onions into small bowls and sprinkle generously with vinaigrette.

Another meze is a wedge of feta cheese on a small plate and garnished with olives and tomato slices. Vinaigrette is also drizzled over this feta cheese meze. A third easy meze option would be a small saucer or plate of two or more olives with carrot sticks and some radishes with the vinaigrette topping them.

Greek Vinaigrette

Common Greek vinaigrette is a mix of extra virgin olive oil, a small amount of lemon juice and herbs. Whole and fresh herb leaves are best, but dried herbs will do. The main herbs for rich and traditional Greek flavour are garlic, mint, basil and oregano.

Marinated & Grilled

Poultry, lamb or goat meat and fish are the common main proteins consumed in Greece. Any of these will work fabulously for a Greek dinner feast. Cuts of choice are marinated.

The marinade is made with ingredients like the Greek vinaigrette consisting of olive oil, a little lemon juice and herbs. Slices of lemon are excellent added with the marinade. Marinating overnight is ideal, but at least give an hour or more for full flavor enhancement. After the marinating process, grill the meat on a hot grill until properly cooked at safe meat cooking temperatures.

Hot Bread

If bread is desired to eat with the meal, you can warm whole wheat rolls or flatbread with a little extra virgin olive oil on them. Serve them warm from the oven. You do not have to, but you could infuse a little olive oil warm with fresh crushed garlic and serve it with the hot bread.

The Dessert

Of course, baklava is a popular Greek dessert. An uncomplicated way to prepare is to purchase phyllo dough and paint softened butter in between every two layers, add a prepared mixture of chopped nuts, cinnamon and honey and repeat to about six layers of the phyllo. Bake in an oven preheated to 325-350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 45-50 minutes or until golden brown on top. Cut in squares or triangles, you can serve baklava hot or cold.

An even simpler dessert is based on Greek yogurt. Top a few scoops of plain yogurt in a small dish with a fairly lavish drizzle of honey and sprinkle of nuts like walnuts. You can garnish the dish with fresh figs or other pieces of fresh fruit.

Simply Pleasant & Delicious Mediterranean

1-2-3 you have a wonderful Greek dinner that is very easy to make. Make the dinner a happy occasion. You and your family can be transported to the Mediterranean with a little mood music and this delicious spread of fine food from the country of Greece.

A Tribute to the Tomato

What is so wonderful about a tomato? I think of its round, plump and shiny exterior as well as its juicy and fruity interior. I think of the many dishes in which it plays the star role in Mediterranean cuisine. I certainly pay all compliments to its Original Creator. Still, this fruit comes down to us as something delicious fresh, juiced or cooked. The colors and varieties are astounding, to say the least. One of the easiest foods to grow, the tomato graces tables around the world prepared in a wide range of cuisines.

As known in recorded history, the Spanish distributed tomatoes far and wide in the Americas and Europe during the period of American colonization. Slight differences of the story give credit to specific individuals like Columbus and other explorers as being the ones to bring the tomatoes to Europe. Some say the first tomatoes grew small green fruits on vines in Peru. These small and green tomatoes were eventually cultivated and cross-bred as well as shared in Mexico and other Central and South American countries.

As seen in old cookbooks and in other books like the Little House Books, tomatoes on into the early 1900s were often eaten as fruit. They were canned with sugar and served in small saucers, topped with sugar sprinkles as a dessert. Some may still prefer tomatoes that way.

Still, stepping into today's western culture and cuisine favorites, tomatoes are extremely popular.  Tomatoes are versatile, one of the most eaten foods in many households where they are commonly found prepared in the following ways:

• Salads
• Soups
• Beverages
• Pizza sauce
• Spaghetti and other pastas
• Meatloaf
• Ketchup on sandwiches, hotdogs and burgers
• Salsas and sauces for any number of uses

The list of dishes in which tomatoes are a main or contributing ingredient could easily keep on going for quite a while.

These fruits are one of the easiest of foods to grow and harvest in small home gardens. Seed catalogues usually carry more tomatoes than any other seed types they sell. Heirlooms are popular because the seeds of ripe fruits can be dried and saved for planting the next year. I am usually fascinated by the varieties of heirlooms I find in catalogues that have been grown for over a hundred years in European countries like Germany, Italy and Hungary. I have found that tomatoes easily germinate from seeds directly into the soil if the soil is kept moist the first few weeks after planting.

No matter whether tomatoes are grown in personal gardens or bought fresh or canned in the supermarket, they are a wonderful food to me. I love to fix them in numerous ways as I put together my favourite Mediterranean-inspired dishes. I love the different types like the bright reds large and small, the yellow ones and the pinks. Even still when I can choose my preference for fresh tomatoes, I select those grown in a small garden and cultivated with personal care and love.

Links for further information on tomatoes in history:

http://ag.arizona.edu/hydroponictomatoes/timeline.htm

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/publications/vegetabletravelers/tomato.html

Drying My Favorite Herbs for Storage

Many herbs are known in Mediterranean cuisine, and my love for herbs goes way back. I love to season with herbs, drink herb tea, and enjoy the health benefits of these treasure plants. I grow, dry, and store herbs. My small kitchen garden only has small patches of mint, lemon balm, French tarragon, Greek oregano and lavender right now, but I have grown others in the past and hope to broaden my variety in the future. I am also growing cayenne peppers. All of these fine herbs and many more can easily be dried for use at home during the winter, and can be given as gifts to others, as well.

Drying Methods

Stringing peppers with needle and thread, they can be hung in an area where they will have plenty of dry air and no direct sunlight. Most herbs also dry that way as whole plants. Still, herb leaves, seeds and other residue fall from the drying stalks. If hanging these herb plants in the house, they can cause a mess. I prefer another method.

This method is easier. While food dehydrators do dry herbs, I like using the air dry technique. I only have to lay the whole plants or branches on a dry towel where I can let them air a few days out of direct sunlight. If I cannot store them immediately upon drying, I lay another clean towel over them so that dust does not collect on the plants.

Storage Methods

After the plants are dry, I can store them as whole plants, but they take up much less space if I take time to brush the leaves and flowers gently off the stems. I remove the leaves over a baking sheet. Then, I can pour the crushed leaves into jars.

I use jars because they are excellent storage containers for dried herbs and other foods. Plastic bags and containers do not seem to store nearly as well. The herbs do not have the fresh, full flavor that is kept by storage in glass. In fact, glass stores and keeps the herbs tasting fresh for at least a year.

When storing herbs, jars of any size can sit attractively on a shelf, but if they are in a darkened cupboard or pantry shelf, the shelf-life is longer. Sunlight seems to quickly zap the herbs of their flavor. These herbs can also be stored in the freezer. When kept the stored herbs are ready for use in favorite dishes.