Ingredient: black olives

Mediterranean Spring Mix Salad

Is anything more exhilarating than watching the Earth come back to life in the spring? No matter how challenging things are in the rest of the world, a walk around the block can have me whistling a tune in no time. Daffodils and tulips are popping up from the ground, forsythia bushes burst out their bright yellow flowers, and one of my favorite ingredients, spring mix salad greens, make an appearance in my garden. One of my favorite ways to serve spring mix salad is to combine it with Mediterranean flavors of roasted red peppers, olives, pine nuts, and feta.

Spring Mix Salad

Spring Mix Salad is typically a combination the following lettuce types: romaine, oak, leaf, butter, chard, spinach, and arugula. The greens are small and tender. They are also quite delicate so you will want to handle and dress them with care. I like to make a light vinaigrette and sparingly drizzle it over the greens. A spring mix salad is not the salad to pour a glumpy ranch-style dressing over. You will want a hearty romaine or iceberg to stand up to the weight of those types of dressings.

Put the ingredients for the simple Mediterranean-inspired vinaigrette into a Mason jar and shake vigorously to combine. You can make the dressing ahead of time and then shake it up again just before serving. P.S. Some of you have asked about the olive wood Salt Cellarseen in these photos. I have included the link to it.

You can either use jarred roasted red peppers for this recipe or roast your own. If I am not in a mad rush I usually roast them myself over one of my gas burners. You can also roast the red pepper under the broiler or on your BBQ. The key is to let the skin of the red pepper get nice and charred. Then, you place the pepper in a brown paper bag or in a bowl with a cover to steam for 10 minutes. The skin will peel right off.

The salad comes together quickly and makes a great accompaniment for dinner or I love to take it to work for lunch. Just tote your dressing along separately and pour on just before serving. The spring mix salad greens will wilt rather quickly after being dressing so plan accordingly.

How to Make Mediterranean Spring Mix Salad

This post contains affiliate links

Greek Buddha Bowl

One of the things that I love about Buddha bowls is that you get a complete meal in a bowl. Hello Fun Seekers’ reader Mila inspired this Greek Buddha Bowl. I combined the flavors that you typically associate with Greek food, like feta, olives, red onions, and a spicy yogurt sauce into a hearty and healthy meal. This Greek Buddha Bowl recipe is the second in a series of Buddha bowl recipes here at Hello Fun Seekers. The first post was a Mexican food inspired Fiesta Buddha bowl.

Are there flavor combinations that you love that would make a great Buddha Bowl? I would love to hear them in the comments below. I am thinking about Thai flavors or maybe sushi roll flavors.

Ingredients and Swaps

Along with their versatility, I adore the way a Buddha bowl incorporates a grain (in this case, farro), vegetables (zucchini, red onion, and red pepper), and beans (garbanzos) into a nutritional powerhouse of a meal. All that is needed is a delicious sauce and perhaps a few toppings and dinner is done. But, the beauty of a Buddha bowl is the way the recipe can be adapted to incorporate your favorite flavors.

There are no rules here! Swap out ingredients that you or your family are not crazy about with ingredients that are more palatable to you. If you aren’t a zucchini fan just replace it with something else that is green. How about broccoli? Or, perhaps spinach suits you better? Don’t roast the spinach but you could sauté it if you didn’t want to use it raw. However, you can use it raw and the spinach would likely wilt a little bit when combined with the warm grain and roasted veggies and be incredibly delicious.

Have you tried farro? Farro is a wheat grain often used in Italian cuisine. Until recently, farro was sometimes difficult for me to find at the grocery store. Thankfully, I can regularly find farro at Trader Joe’s and sometimes in the bulk bins of many grocery stores. Farro has a slightly chewy texture and nutty flavor when cooked. If you can’t find farro you can substitute other grains such as brown rice, quinoa, or barley in this recipe.

Greek Pizza with Spicy Yogurt Sauce

Do you have a few dinner recipes in your arsenal that you go to when you need a quick, healthy dinner? Veggie burgers, bean and cheese burritos, and popcorn are mine. I know popcorn isn’t technically dinner but on occasion, paired with a glass of wine, it is the best I can do.

It can be easy to outsource dinner to take-out or delivery but its January and we are committed to sticking with our healthy eating goals, right? Right! So, let’s skip take-out and add some new quick and healthy recipes to our collection.

What I love about this recipe is not only quick and healthy but the Greek flavor profile is delicious too. The only cooking involved is chopping the veggies and roasting them in the oven. Everything else is just an assembly job. The pizzas can be totally customized to suit your taste and the tastes of your families. Hate olives? Skip them. Love artichoke hearts? Add them.

Use a whole wheat pita as a base. You can use regular white pita too, of course, but using whole wheat bumps up the nutrition. Hummus is the sauce. You can use prepared hummus or homemade. I love making hummus at home but there are so many delicious commercially prepared tubs of hummus out there that I almost always pick up a few containers to keep in the fridge when I grocery shop.

The only step in this recipe that can be considered cooking is this one. You will chop up vegetables into uniform pieces to encourage them to roast together in harmony. If some of the veggie pieces are huge and others small, the small pieces may burn before the large ones cook through. So, uniformly chop your veggies and drain then rinse a can of garbanzo beans. The roasted beans add a little crunch to the pizza.

Warm the pitas in the oven while the veggies roast and all you have left to do is assemble pizzas and pat yourself on the back for sticking to your resolutions.