What to expect from the Recipe Hippie!
Welcome to Recipe Hippie, a free spirited approach towards Mediterranean recipes and lifestyle. My goal here is to inspire you to enjoy Mediterranean style recipes, and to help give you the skills and education to be able to cook a variety of healthy meals with the ingredients that you have on hand.
I am SO thrilled to meet you! My name is Liz, and food blogging is my passion. I started back in 2020 right when the pandemic started, and haven’t looked back since! I have a background in physical therapy, and thoroughly enjoy the science behind how the foods we eat affect our bodies and our minds.
One of my biggest goals with writing my recipes for Recipe Hippie is to give you efficient and useful ingredient substitutions. Trying to cook specific recipes with very specific ingredients can get costly, and it’s never fun to have to run to the grocery store mid recipe because you forgot a crucial ingredient!
Why conform into one single rigid recipe when you can use what you have on hand, get creative and make it your own?! (I guess that’s the hippie in me)
The recipes on this site are my own personal take on foods that are enjoyed in the Mediterranean. Some may have an American twist, and some may use seasonal ingredients that are only found in North America. But the heart of every recipe will be to enjoy plant-forward and healthy meals and dishes.
Why I Started Eating A Mostly Mediterranean Diet
Why I Started Eating A Mediterranean Diet:
After the birth of my child, Madison, I started to notice a huge drop in energy and concentration. Brain fog would be putting it lightly, it was more like a white out. With my background in healthcare, I knew that my diet could be influencing how my brain and body were functioning, and decided to hit the books and figure out what I needed to change.
Low and behold, the Mediterranean Diet was voted the “Best Overall Diet” in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022 by US News and World Report. Interesting!
I also found a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed that the Mediterranean diet had the potential to reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death related to heart problems by 30%. That was very significant.
But I didn’t want to be on a diet. I knew that diet culture is generally negative, and I did not want to fall into those restrictive eating patterns. Luckily, I found out that the Mediterranean diet isn’t really a diet in that sense.
In a nutshell, the Mediterranean diet is just enjoying the foods that people in the Mediterranean enjoy. It’s eating their diet.
And when I looked at the foods that they enjoy, I also enjoyed them! The concept of eating more fruits and vegetables and exercising for 30 minutes a day really resonated with me, and I dove right in.
Since then, I have been enjoying a ‘mostly’ Mediterranean Diet, and I am loving the freedom it has given me to experiment and create delicious and healthy meals for my family and for you!
And my concentration and energy have also greatly improved. So it’s a win-win!
On Recipe Hippie, you will find recipes that showcase Mediterranean style dishes, with more of an American twist. Not all of my dishes are the perfect ‘Mediterranean Diet Plate’, but they will give you a basis of which to work off of. For example, if I have a greek yogurt and hummus chicken breast recipe, it will be up to you to add the vegetables and grain!
But that’s why this is Recipe Hippie! I don’t believe in ridgid recipes and give you the education and freedom to make your own creative decisions in your own kitchen. No rules, I’m a cool mom!
Peace & Love,
-Liz
