One of my favorite meals is Sunday dinner at my house. Meal prep and weekend projects, and enjoying active outdoor fun in the sun, makes for a busy weekend. Sunday dinners should be quick and simple. I love to have my brother, Phillip, over for our Sunday dinners. Quick and simple is not a substitute for healthy and delicious. That is why Phillip has been served my favorite Sunday dinner, Greek Style Tuna, on more than occasion.
Recently, I had apologized to my brother when the menu was Greek Style Tuna for the third time in as many months. He looked at me like I was crazy – that look only a little brother can give their annoying sister. That look told me he loves Greek Style Tuna l as much as I do. What can I say? Good taste runs in the family.
I first enjoyed a version of Greek Style Tuna living in Virginia Beach as a beginning teacher (code for financially strapped). A kind teacher had invited me to her home for a home-cooked dinner. She had married a man from Greece and was learning to cook for him. She told me it would be a Greek style dinner. I was not yet hosting or cooking very much. Upon sitting at the table, mesmerized I wondered how she could make such a perfectly fresh dinner after a busy day of teaching? I only recently started making my version of Greek Style Tuna and I now realize she was not an illusionist, it is simple.
I always serve the Greek Style Tuna with the roasted potatoes and slices of tomatoes never changing the menu. Sometimes I add to the menu a delicious cake for dessert.
Sweets
Sweets are not a big part of the Mediterranean Diet and only as a celebration and celebrations should not be daily occurrences. The guidelines outline celebrations are approximately monthly. I anticipated my monthly splurges in the beginning. Imagining old favorites, a browning, a donut, or the two vanilla Oreo cookies I would sneak on Saturday mornings with my coffee – some wicked departure from healthy eating. Now a year and a half in, I would not even think of eating a dessert not based on the Mediterranean principles.
Cheat sweets no longer taste good to me. Overly-processed foods in my body make me feel horrible. On the Mediterranean Diet, natural sweeteners are the focus for desserts, avoiding refined sugar. Recipes integrate whole wheat, or nut meal to minimize the use of white flour. I now savor desserts – no longer mindlessly feeding unhealthy cravings. On the Mediterranean Diet, I get to have my health and to eat the cake too.
On Easter, I made my old standby, Greek Style Tuna, served as always with roasted potatoes and freshly sliced beefsteak tomato topped with fresh basil. To celebrate, I added a beautiful almond cake with fresh raspberries. My 50th birthday is coming in a month and a half, and I typically have a large celebration out with friends and family. Under the current pandemic nothing is typical. Maybe I will recreate this simple Easter feast as a gift to myself? It will be the best of all worlds, delicious, healthy and easy with plenty of time to go outside and paddleboard with family and friends enjoying the sunshine.
The Recipes
Greek Style Tuna with Roasted Lemon Potatoes
Arrivederci,
If you are not familiar with the Mediterranean Diet, the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid emphasizes the importance of enjoying meals with others and physical activity.
I don’t eat Greek Style Tuna that many times, but I did have it last week with Greek potatoes. Fresh Peaches with honey for after meal (later that night). I think it was the first time my wife Peg had that kind of Tuna. She loved it and she didn’t put Tatar Sauce on it.
Yum. Peaches. I have two ripe ones that I am planning to have for dessert tonight. Great idea on the honey!