Suzy Karadsheh and her father grew up in the Egyptian city of Port Said and went to the local market every day after school to pick up fresh produce for dinner.
Once home, she did her homework in the kitchen and inhaled the fragrant, garlicky, spicy or tomatoey aromas while her mother cooked dinner. The port city borders the Mediterranean Seamaking the local cuisine a melting pot of flavors from Egypt and nearby countries including Greece, Turkey and Italy.
“I absorbed it without realizing it,” Karadsheh, the founder of The Mediterranean Dish, a recipe website, told Business Insider. Now based in Atlanta and a busy mother of two, Karadsheh no longer has time to visit the local market every day, but she applies the principles of the Mediterranean diet to the 45-minute meals she makes for her and her family every day.
The Mediterranean diet is generally considered the healthiest way to eat. It prioritizes seasonal fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, fish and extra virgin olive oil, but is not rigid.
“It’s a joyful way of eating. It’s not a restrictive way of eating. And I think that’s what people miss when they hear the word diet in the Mediterranean diet,” she said.
She has one rule, though: “don’t spend more than half an hour preparing on a weeknight,” she said.
Karadsheh shared what she eats on a typical day on the Mediterranean diet.
Hearty breakfast
Karadsheh eats a late breakfast. nubphan koi/Getty Images
“I grew up with one hearty breakfast. That’s why we don’t have sugar for breakfast very often in this house,” Karadsheh said.
For breakfast she often eats sweet potatoes, which she roasts in advance and keeps in the refrigerator, with fried eggs.
To make breakfast, she cuts a pre-cooked sweet potato in half, grills both halves in a skillet with a little olive oil and sears them for about three minutes until heated through. She fries two eggs in the same frying pan. She puts them on a plate and usually combines them with some chopped cucumber, tomatoes and feta cheese.
“It’s just so filling,” she said.
Mediterranean grain bowl for lunch
Lunch is a quiet affair for Karadsheh because she often has a late breakfast. She usually has leftovers or uses the pre-cooked grains and roasted vegetables she keeps in the refrigerator to make a Mediterranean grain bowl. She often has some hummus and a piece of bread with it.
Whole grains are central to the Mediterranean diet, and a great source of fiber. For example, one cup of cooked quinoa contains five grams of fiber. Karadsheh’s favorite grains are freekeh, a roasted durum wheat with a “savory and smoky flavor” popular in Egypt, and farro, an ancient Italian grain.
Chicken (or fish) dinner winner
Karadsheh makes marinades inspired by various Mediterranean countries. DronG/Getty images
This summer, Karadsheh mainly ate fish or chicken with a Greek salad, consisting of peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, good feta cheese, onions and olives, plus some grains, and sometimes tzatziki, a yogurt sauce.
Her favorite fish recipe is oven-baked cod with lemon and garlic. To make it she dips the cod in a lemon, olive oiland butter sauce, then dredge it in flour, seasoned with paprika, cumin, coriander and salt. She then sears the fish in a cast-iron skillet to give it some color, pours the rest of the lemon sauce over it with some chopped garlic and cooks it in the oven at 200°C for 10 to 15 minutes.
She also enjoys trying marinades for grilled chicken, drawing inspiration from different Mediterranean countries. Sometimes it’s harissa, a Tunisian hot chili paste, she said, sometimes it’s Greek oregano, lemon juice and olive oil.
Gut health experts recommend eating 30 different types of plant foods per week because research shows this number promotes healthy diversity in the gut microbiome, the trillions of microbes that live in the colon and influence overall health. Using lots of herbs and spices, all of which count as different plants, is an easy way to get closer to the coveted 30 plants per week.
