Mediterranean Diet: 70 Easy, Healthy Recipes by Good Housekeeping, Susan Westmoreland

 
Mediterranean Diet: 70 Easy, Healthy Recipes by Good Housekeeping, Susan Westmoreland

My Rating: ★★★★

When the Mediterranean diet was highly recommended by my nutritionist, I decided to start looking at cookbooks to see what it was all about. In this book, you will find 70 delicious sounding recipes that will make you hungry by just reading! Plus, each recipe is adjustable for anyone who has food allergies! There isn’t a single recipe in here that is 100% off the table due to food allergies.

The book is organized by the type of recipe: main dishes, small plates, soups, vegetarian, and so on. Desserts aren’t featured, so if you’re looking for desserts that fit under the Mediterranean diet, you’ll have to look elsewhere! The opening explains what this diet is and that it’s not actually a diet in the way we all think when we hear the word “diet” thrown around. Sure, one can lose weight while eating like this, but it will depend on how much carbs, sugar, and calories one consumes.

That said, everything in this book looks absolutely delicious as well as healthy. I particularly liked that it opens with a good variety of seafood dishes as I’m someone who loves seafood. While there aren’t pictures for every recipe, there are pictures for a good amount of the recipes, which will make the book more enticing for people who would like to see pictures of the dishes. The recipes themselves are simple and easy to follow, but some are more labor intensive than others. I also like that the serving size and nutritional value is included, especially since many people want or need to track the calories, carbs, and sugar they consume.

Another thing I really like is that there are tips included at the end of each recipe. Some of the tips are simple, like giving ideas for what to do with your leftovers to turn them into a whole new meal the next day or dropping some possible substitutes for an ingredient. Other tips are extremely useful, such as how to pick a swordfish, which is great because I’ve never bought or cooked swordfish before! 

All in all, I think this is a great book and I’m looking forward to trying some of the recipes, especially the plum tomato and eggplant shakshuka recipe.