When you are putting on an event, or perhaps offering lunch to hard working office employees, catering is a practical option. Mediterranean provides a nice break from pizzas and sandwiches, and offers wonderful options for a variety of special diets.
If you’re planning on having a lunch catered, here are some great options that everyone will love, including options for vegetarians and gluten-free.
Dolma is a popular pick because not only is it a crowd-pleaser, it’s also vegetarian and gluten-free. This is a great option for a variety of special needs diets, as well as food people who are not vegetarian or gluten-free will enjoy.
Dolma is also really practical in other ways because it can be eaten both as a snack, an appetizer, or the side on a main course. It’s ability to fill many different roles makes it a wonderful catering option.
If you need finger foods, Borak is a great option to include as well. These tasty filled pastries can be stuffed with lamb, cheese, or spinach. Get a variety so meat lovers as well as vegetarians can enjoy. Borak is very popular, so you may want to get extras of these when planning your catered event. These will go quickly!
Mediterranean cuisine has an abundance of grilled options too. Pick up some chicken or beef shawerma and some pitas to wrap it in. Throw in a few shrimp or lamb kabobs and you’ve got a lavish feast for your event in no time at all.
Grilled options are great because they offer a variety of flavors and options, and there’s even vegan kabobs available.
Hummus with pita or vegetables to dip into it is also another wonderful idea for including in an office lunch. Hummus is a very popular dip, and works great to help feed hungry people while waiting for grilled foods or other items to be brought out.
For special events, why not finish off with dessert? Baklahva is an incredible dessert, offering crispy layers and the sticky sweetness of honey in every bite. While Baklahva might be a bit overdone for a regular office lunch, it would be perfect for a retirement party or other event where something a bit special might be appropriate.
Mediterranean food is delicious, but sometimes you just need a quick and easy office lunch. If you need good simple food fast, there’s also the office lunch options of sandwich, soda and salad available as well. These are good options for feeding a large number of people quickly, and make a very practical choice.
If you’re ready to change things up with your catering and offer some fresh flavors to your loyal office workers, Mediterranean food is the choice for you. Mediterranean works great thanks to its ability to offer a wide variety of flavors and respect dietary restrictions for a broad number of people.
One of our feature salads at Aladdin Mediterranean Restaurant is Fattoush. This delicious and vibrant salad is of Mediterranean origin, and varies depending on where you get the salad. Most versions of Fattoush include leafy greens such as romaine lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes, and garlic. The dressing is usually a combination of olive oil and lemon juice. One of the most distinguishing features are the pieces of pita bread sliced into the salad.
This salad isn’t just a salad. The ingredients tell a story of centuries of tradition. It goes back to a time when resources weren’t quite as bountiful as they are today, and people of the Mediterranean had to be thoughtful about how to make their food stretch.
The combination of greens and bread is likely a practical way to use leftovers. By combining bread and salad, the people of the Mediterranean made use of everything they had to make something delicious.
This tradition spread in popularity because it was so delicious. Now it is a favorite food in the region, and a feature menu item at almost every restaurant in the Middle East
While Fattoush can’t be traced back to one particular person, most researchers agree that it probably originated in North Lebanon. Historians believe that the farmers in Lebanon would take their old, dry, stale flat breads and try to reuse them.
What can you do with old, dry bread? In their wisdom, Lebanese farmers figured out that if the old bread was baked or fried, it became crunchy and delicious instead. This old bread could then be reused in a flavorful, tasty way.
Salad greens are readily available throughout the year owing to their quick growth, so mixing it into a salad was a sensible choice. The result was Fattoush. Additional ingredients came along later, such as the lemon to brighten the taste of the salad. Sumac is also sometimes used to give the salad a distinctive flavor.
Many legends surround Fattoush, such as a family by that name harboring Christians who were fasting and couldn’t eat meat, but these stories are very unlikely. The name Fattoush is more likely to come from the Arabic word, “fatt” which means crushed or crumbled. It’s likely this word was used for the pieces of flat bread or pita crumbled into the salad.
Fattoush is often celebrated as a sustainable dish because of it’s history making use of leftovers. It also makes use of seasonal ingredients, and can be adapted to keep people fresh, healthy, and getting the most out of their food all through the year.
Fattoush has been popular in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine for hundreds of years. What was once a dish designed by thrifty farmers to try and reuse food is now a celebrated dish widely eaten around the world.
The next time you order a salad, consider trying this remarkable dish. Fattoush is delicious, healthy, and has a rich history behind it as well.
At Aladdin Cafe, we love a good meal and enjoy seeing others savoring Middle Eastern food and vegan food. We also understand the benefits of eating healthy.
Managing a healthy diet isn’t about limiting food or staying thin. It’s balancing that pizza with foods that maximize energy, improve mood and minimize health risk. What we eat has a significant influence on not just our physical but our emotional and mental well being.
Healthy choices doesn’t necessarily mean giving up foods. It means being aware of what goes in our bodies. We know it’s not as easy as it sounds. We love to eat as much as the next guy. But we also think about healthy eating, such as adding one salad a day to our diet. You’ll find once you get in the habit of making healthy choices, you’ll see the results and be more conscious of making healthy choices.
Here are a few tips to help with that.
Get in the habit of reading labels. Manufacturers know most consumers don’t. Consumers have no idea of the huge amounts of sugar and unhealthy fats these companies put into packaged foods.
Eat more foods with fewer trans fats. It doesn’t always have to be fried chicken. From time to time, go with grilled fish seasoned to taste. Be aware of the refined carbs you ingest. These are infamous contributors to risks like heart disease and so many of us consume them beyond healthy boundaries.
We spend too much time concerned with calories, obsessively counting them to the decimal point so that we can eat a donut. We’ve come to believe that’s healthy, when truthfully, denying ourselves regular portions of food isn’t always the best option if you haven’t been advised by a doctor. Instead of counting calories, simply make healthier choices. Look at foods in terms of variety, freshness and color. Avoid processed and packaged foods.
This cannot be stressed enough: drink water. Water is natural and flushes the system of all the toxins and waste that otherwise gestate. Low energy, headaches and consistent lethargy can be symptoms of dehydration. On top of this, many people often see thirst as hunger and end up eating unnecessarily. If you find yourself hungry — especially if you’ve eaten within the last two hours — drink a glass of water and see if the desire passes.
Be aware of your mood after you eat. Consumption of junk food might feel satisfying, but it can drain you of energy and make you uncomfortable and nauseous. Healthy foods won’t do this. Aladdin Cafe is all about healthy, fresh and premium quality meals. Whenever you eat with us, you make a healthy choice.