The Mediterranean Table: Simple Recipes for Healthy Living on the Mediterranean Diet

I'll fess up. I found and ordered this cookbook because it was featured on dumpaday.com. I love Greek food and I've long wanted to learn more about preparing good Mediterranean food. I bought it *after* dismissing the reviews that complain about hardly any pictures. Pictures are nice, but come on. The best cookbooks usually don't have pictures (Joy of cooking anyone?)First off, my cooking skills are intermediate. I'm much better than a beginner, but I'm a long way from being an expert. I rely on good cookbooks to give me good instructions because my skills and knowledge are still developing.Bottom line up front. I will be making a lot of recipes from this book. Everything so far has been delicious. It's a good cookbook, but it has some flaws. I'm on my 4th recipe, and I've already many issues with the instructions and general organization of the book. First of all... the index is just plain bad. It's superficial. It expects you to know the first letter of any recipe that you want. For example... say you want to make the "Mint Pesto Chicken." The recipe immediately directs you elsewhere in the cookbook to create the pesto. No big deal, lots of cookbooks do that. But after I prepared that pesto... I wasn't sure of the exact name of the chicken recipe. So I looked up "chicken" in the index. Nothing there that matched my recipe. Was this the wrong book (yes, I have many cookbook)? I didn't think so. I checked the table of contents, and there under poultry was "Mint Pesto Chicken" It's a chicken recipe, but the dang index doesn't list it. Well... actually it does, but it's under "Mint" not "Chicken." Under "Chicken" it doesn't even say that there are other chicken recipes. It doesn't for example say "see also mint pesto chicken". There were several cases like this. You have to know the first letter of the recipe name regardless of the main ingredients.Bottom line - this index is painfully literal and limited to the exact name of the recipe only. That's one complaint.The big complaint is this: Instructions. This is why I dropped my rating.As an intermediate cook, I've prepared a lot of potatoes. When I went to prepare the "Spanish tortilla with potatoes, red onion, and egg" I had some trouble. After slicing 2lbs of potatoes and cutting them into 1/4" slices, the recipe directs you to cook them in a 1/2 cup of olive oil in a large skillet over medium for 20 minutes or until soft."Huh... that's a lot of potatoes and not much oil" Do I cover them? Doesn't say so, so I guess not. It just says I should use a large skillet What size is large? Doesn't say. I used my "large" 10" all-clad. You know what? That's not adequate. That many potatoes overwhelms the skillet. They don't cook evenly at all. Should I have done them in batches? maybe, but it doesn't say to. Plus, that not really enough oil to do batch cooking. Bottom line - that much time + that much oil in that sized skillet is simply not sufficient. You know what you need to do? Use a *really* large skillet and cover it. That's common sense if you know how to cook potatoes. Am I wrong? maybe, but departing from the instructions produced a wonderful tortilla. I know enough about cooking to know that those instructions don't work w/o more time and skill. So I have had to add cooking notes to ever recipe that I've made so far.That Mint Pesto Chicken I mentioned? The pesto is awesome! I never would have thought mint and walnuts would work so well for pesto. The problem is the chicken. It needs to be cut up or flattened and maybe you should *not* use breasts. It will cook with the instructions given, but don't expect it to absorb all that pesto flavor. You get plank of dry flavorless chicken with an amazing coating. A standard chicken breast is simply too thick. Cutting it up or pounding it to a uniform thickness dramatically improves cooking time and flavor penetration. Does it suggest that? Nope. So again... another great recipe with inadequate instructions and I've made more notes in the book.I made fig/almond/yogurt phyllo tarts this AM. They tasted amazing, but it tells you to use two cookie sheets. Why? to make six servings. What size sheet? it doesn't say. Just one half-sheet pan is all that you actually need. Again... making more notes in the book. Also.. you have to thaw the phyllo dough first. Probably a "duh" sort of comment, but in later phyllo recipes, it makes a specific mention to thaw it. Not this one. I guess you have to read them all *before* you make anything.Another tricky one is the Baked Eggs with Chorizo, White Beans, and Tomatoes. This is an awesome hearty breakfast *if* you can get it to turn out. It calls for you to cook the them in 6-8oz ramekins. Right before baking, you crack an egg into the center of each (on top of the filling) and it is supposed to cook at 400 F for 10-12 minutes. Again.. these instructions are really not quite right. That's not enough time for the ramekins to warm through and for egg to cook as they describe. I didn't get good results until I let them bake for 20 minutes, even then it was hard to get them to come out right. After several attempts, I've decided to give up on the ramekins and turn this into a breakfast casserole.By the time I've made everything, I'll probably have added preparation notes to every single recipe.Does that make this a bad cookbook? No. There are some awesome recipes in here. I've loved everything I've made so far. If you use this cookbook, you're going to make good and healthy food. Recipes might take longer than you think and instructions might be inadequate, but it'll still be good. Even the disasters turn out pretty tasty.I'd give this five stars if the instructions and the index were better. I recommend that you write down the name of all the recipes you want to make - because if you don't know the first word of the name of each recipe, you've going to have hard time finding it again.So.. complaints aside, I think that this is one of my favorite cookbooks. I'm just not sure that I'd recommend it for beginners. You really need to know when the cooking and prep instructions are inadequate or even wrong, but the food.. it's just so good you forget the annoyance.--edit--Thanks to the folks who've marked my review helpful. I'm honored that you slogged through all the typos and bad grammar and found it useful. I've since increased my rating of this cookbook to 4 stars - mainly for all the extra information and the regional presentation of the recipes.

I'm disappointed in this book but I think I will keep it because I don't want to pay the return shipping and I may be able to modify the recipes. My main complaint is the amount of sodium in each serving of nearly all of the recipes. Way too much salt. But at least the content of sodium is shown - some recipe books don't include it. The worst is Bacalhau and Black-eyed Pea Salad with 8,401 mg. per serving. All the soups have over 1,000 mg. per serving. I found it interesting that they say to replace butter with olive oil to follow the Mediterranean way of eating and then the first recipe in the book calls for 6 tablespoons of butter. If I am able to substitute spices for the salt I think I will like many of the recipes. As I said, I do like it that the nutrition per serving is shown, and I do like the presentation of the recipes. It is fun that the country of origin or where it is popular is shown on a little map at the top of each recipe. I also like the number of servings and prep time at the beginning of each recipe.

I have recently switch to the Mediterranean diet and since I wanted good healthy, authentic recipes I ordered 5 books. There were books that stated how important using whole food ingredients are but then had recipes with egg substitutes, fake sweetness, vegetable oil spreads, and low fat dairy. This book doesn't do that. There's whole food ingredients and the recipes look yummy. Also, some of the books I purchased were majority bread and pasta recipes. This book has more variety which I appreciate. The pictures of the finished product are also nice.

I have always had great results on my cholesterol until now that I am 70. My doctor and I agreed since it was not too bad to handle it with dietary changes rather than drugs. He recommended a Mediterraen diet. Most of the cookbooks I looked at had recipes that were too complicated or just did not sound like things I would want. After going through this entire book I can't wait to get started. I also know this will make a great gift for several friend and family foodies,

I have high blood pressure and wanted to lose weight. ... I also have a family history of heart disease. .... The recipes in this book are good to eat and they're not too bad to get the ingredients for.... A vegan cookbook had recipes better for my heart but the food wasn't that good. This book has amounts of oil that I lessen for my health but I can't criticise the book because if you don't include oil at all there is less taste and satiation.

I just started getting into the Mediterrainian food and wanted a beginner cookbook.I fell in love with this cookbook even after only a few recipes. I am a big fan of how under each recipe name, there is a small description on where the dish originated and alternatives that you can do.There is also the ever useful conversions in the back, and also a list of vegetables and fruits that are best to buy organic.

I'm one of those cooks that like photographs of the recipes in the cookbooks I'm using. There are only a few photos of the dishes prepared in this book and they are of low quality. The recipes themselves are mostly the usual fare, nothing new or exceptional.

I bought this book to help with weight loss. I find the recipes to be delicious and mostly simple. My son is a Mediterranean chef and tells me the ingredients are very similar to what the do in his restaurant. I'm very pleased.

Service was great, but I was disappointed to discover it is actually an American book. Full of 'flavor', 'color', 'cilantro' 'kabobs' etc. which, for me, rather grates. I'd be much happier if the author was actually local to the Mediterranean instead of living in a foreign country on the other side of the world, a bit like me writing a book on Korean cookery. Of course, no clue in the advert....

I really like this cookbook. The recipes are simple and easy to follow. I am English but we all know that arugula is rocket etc. As a pensioner I was pleased to find that no pricey ingredients are required. Wholesome, tasty and easy to prepare. Recommended.

Just what was needed for a high cholesterol foodie.

Easy cooking

Love this book