Need Mediterranean recipes for beginners to the style, but not cooking in general.?

My doctor was trying to insist that I follow the Mediterranean Diet - salads drenched in olive oil, fish and seafood, and pastas. I raise beef and lamb commercially and see no reason for not processing my own meats to cook. Please note the Mediterranean Diet was formulated after visiting with the people during Lent thus they were NOT eating meats for that 40 day period.

Go to the bookstore to the aisle with cookbooks and choose the Betty Crocker Mediterranean Cookery, or something similar. Or since you are computer literate go to http://www.bettycrocker.com/ and tab mediterranean.

I love fresh salads and find loads of them. If there is any fruit or veggie you don't like or can't get, then omit it.

last suggestion: have your daughter write down some of the recipes she has been using!! If she is making them up as I do as she goes along, ok, so she can write them down.

Mediterranean is not necessarily healthier than Atkins or South Beach, but there are those who think it is.

well a wild rice with golden raisins and shaved almonds is a start...

can add cranberries, dried apricots, etc...

I like stuffed grape leaves but never made them - they would be a great thing to try and conquer!

Make your own hummus using chick peas and garlic in a blender.....

can add any seasoning you like, or ingredient - roasted red bell pepper, olives, artichoke....

Any pasta with olive oil, salt and pepper, fresh tomatoes and basil...

Stuff a chicken with lemons and oranges (coat the chicken with olive oil, seasoning - parsley, oregano, etc. & roast - garnish serving platter with slices of fresh lemons and oranges...very Italian!

Mediterranean includes a fairly broad range of cuisines, from Spain to Egypt. Pita bread and tahini feature in many cuisines in the eastern portion of the region, and olive oil is ubiquitous. Bean pastes such as hummus are fairly common as well. Most grocery stores have reasonably priced hummus that is really just as good as homemade, so you could start there. Purchase some pita bread, good quality olive oil, paprika (smoked is great), and then make a sort of Mediterranean salad to serve with it. Mint, lettuce, parsley, cinnamon, green onions (scallions), and tomatoes dressed with lemon juice and olive oil make for a fairly simple and delicious light meal and includes many of the exotic flavors of the region. Toast or lightly grill the pita and sprinkle paprika and olive oil on top of the hummus and use as a dip served with the salad. If you want to get even more exotic, look for zaatar spice blend in the Mediterranean section of the grocery store to sprinkle on the hummus as well.

not exactly but very close healthwise in my opinion, yotam ottolenghi makes superb and original out of the simplest few ingredients. another interesting who rambles delightfully away from the subject, david lebovitz.

This book has won a world prize and has some lovely Meditarranean dishes - see roasted vegetables with Tahini sauce.

Food as Medicine by Sue Radd

http://www.booktopia.com.au/food-as-medicine-sue-r...

Probably your best introduction to the cuisine is two or three weeks on Crete, where to me, Mediterranean cooking is at it's most obvious. Most villages have olive processing cooperatives, and the natives grow their own olives for oil. You'll find restaurants where a mixed seafood grill is offered, and unprocessed small fish, cooked in olive oil and seasoned salt is a staple.

The style is based on using unprocessed ingredients, only olive oil for frying or sauteing and the world's best tomatoes used in salads, sauces and appetizers. It's an Occam's Razor kind of cookery, where the simplest method is the best. Probably the definitive text is found on Amazon:

I do really well using recipes from the NY Times. Here's the search for Mediterranean https://cooking.nytimes.com/search?q=mediterranean...

If there's anything from Mark Bittman - I can guarantee it will be good ;)

From the sound of things the first thing to get is some olive oil.