A simple recipe using best olive oil in a diet for weightloss and a diet for diabetes.
Updated July 7th 2022
Is Olive Oil Good For You?
Whether you are looking for a diet for health heart, a diet for weight loss, or a diet for diabetes, incorporating extra virgin olive oil into your healthy diet plan is a simple healthy diet choice that can have a profound impact on your health and wellbeing.
This simple recipe shows how easy it is to incorporate the best extra virgin olive oil into your health diet plan.
Ingredients
- Linguine 500g
- Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil 2 tbsp
- Garlic 1 bulb, cloves peeled and thinly sliced
- Kale 1 large head, shredded, tough stalks discarded
- Pitted black (such as Kalamata) or mixed olives 150g, roughly chopped
- Aleppo pepper 2-3 tbsp
- Lemons 2, juice of 1 and zest of 2
- Feta 400g
Instructions
- Cook the linguine in a large pan of boiling salted water following pack instructions.
- Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat and gently cook the garlic until translucent. Add the shredded kale and fry for 5 minutes or until starting to soften.
- Using tongs, lift the pasta from the water and add it to the frying pan with a few spoon-fulls of the cooking water. Stir well, then add the olives and a little seasoning. Add the pul biter and lemon juice and zest and combine before crumbling in ¾ of the feta and tossing the pasta to evenly distribute the ingredients. Add a few more tbsp of pasta cooking water if it seems dry. Serve with a sprinkling of the remaining feta.
About Linguine
Linguine is a type of pasta similar to fettuccine and trenette but elliptical in section rather than flat. It is about 4 millimetres in width, which is wider than spaghetti but not as wide as fettuccine. The name linguine means “little tongues” in Italian. These thinner flat pastas, like fettuccine or linguine, are best paired with simple cream sauces like Alfredo or delicate proteins like seafood.
About Kale
Kale is not a new vegetable although due to its health properties its popularity has skyrocketed in recent years. It has become available at not only farmer’s markets but is now available in local grocery stores. You can purchase it in fresh bunches or prerinsed and trimmed in bags.
Types Of Kale
Curly kale is the most common type. The bright green leaves look like ruffles. The flavour is pungent and peppery. Dinosaur kale has narrow green leaves that are wrinkly like dinosaur skin. The leaves are attached to a firm stem that should be removed. Redbor kale has ruffled leaves ranging in colour from a deep red to purple. Russian kale is harder to find, and it has flat fringed leaves that range in colour from green to red to purple. Its flavour is sweeter and more peppery.
Nutritional Benefits
Kale is a nutrition superstar due to the amounts of vitamins A, K, B6 and C, calcium, potassium, copper and manganese it contains. One cup of raw kale has just 33 calories and only 7 grams of carbohydrate. So, it’s a very diabetes-friendly/weight-friendly vegetable. Kale is a member of the cruciferous vegetable family along with cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, collard greens, kohlrabi, rutabaga, turnips and bok choy. These vegetables offer health benefits, including potentially reducing the risk of various types of cancer. The only people who may need to avoid or limit kale intake are those that form oxalate containing kidney stones or take the blood thinner Coumadin/warfarin. Be sure to check with your doctor or dietitian if you have questions.
Uses For Kale
Kale holds its texture well in cooking, and it can be steamed, stir fried, roasted, or eaten raw. You can turn it into smoothies, kale chips, wilt it into soup, mash it with potatoes or turn it into pesto. Always remove the middle rib as it tends to be overly tough and fibrous and imparts a more bitter taste when eaten. Remove the rib by hand or with kitchen shears.
