Squirrel Made exists because Jeremy wanted to keep selling real oil and real vinegar after the company he bought from closed its doors. That is still the whole idea: inspiring healthy eating, and making it simple, convenient and delicious.
Clean eating and Mediterranean-inspired cooking offer ways to build everyday meals around whole ingredients. Start with the vegetables, beans and grains you enjoy, then add olive oil, balsamic vinegar and seasoning for flavor. Here are a few ways to put that into practice.
What Clean Eating Means
It is less a diet than a habit: choose food that is close to how it grew, and cook it yourself. Five basics cover nearly all of it.
- 1
Start with whole foods
Build meals around vegetables, fruit, beans, whole grains and other fresh or minimally processed ingredients.
- 2
Watch added sugar and sodium
Compare labels for added sugar and sodium, and choose amounts that fit the meal you are making.
- 3
Read the ingredient label
Look at what is in the product, including allergens and seasonings, so you can choose ingredients that suit your cooking.
- 4
Cook at home
Preparing meals at home lets you choose the ingredients and adjust the seasoning to your taste.
- 5
Drink water
Plenty of it, in place of sugary sodas and sweetened drinks.
The Mediterranean Way
It is a pattern, not a formula — no counting, no calculating. As Cleveland Clinic describes it, a Mediterranean way of eating leans on plant foods and good fats:
- Lots of vegetables, fruit, beans, lentils and nuts.
- A good amount of whole grains, like whole-wheat bread and brown rice.
- Plenty of extra virgin olive oil as a source of healthy fat.
- A good amount of fish, especially fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids.
- A moderate amount of natural cheese and yogurt.
- Little or no red meat — poultry, fish or beans instead.
- Little or no sweets, sugary drinks or butter.
Source: Cleveland Clinic. Further reading — How to get started on the Mediterranean diet · Omega-3 fatty acids · Is brown rice healthy?.
Four Ways to Build a Plate
Ideas from our kitchen — not recipes from the newsletter. The written-out newsletter recipes live on the recipes page.
Roast the vegetables, season them properly
Whatever is good that week — broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, squash. Toss with extra virgin olive oil and Mediterranean Squirrel, which is rosemary, garlic, onion and lemon peel, and roast until the edges catch. It is the blend we reach for on roasted veggies and fish.
Mediterranean SquirrelMake the dressing instead of buying it
Three parts olive oil to one part balsamic, a pinch of salt, whisk. That is the whole recipe, and it is the easiest bottle on the shelf to stop buying. Our 25 Star White Balsamic is the neutral starting point; the blood orange, peach and Meyer lemon infusions each take it somewhere.
25 Star White Balsamic VinegarLet olive oil be the fat
Ours is a single varietal extra virgin olive oil from Spain — for cooking, and for finishing a bowl of beans, a piece of fish or a slice of good bread. The garlic and basil infusions do the same job with the seasoning already in them.
Extra Virgin Olive OilBuild the plate around beans and grains
Brown rice, farro, lentils, chickpeas, white beans. They do the filling up, so the fish or the chicken can be the smaller part of the plate instead of the centre of it. A little olive oil and a good spice blend is usually the whole seasoning.
Chef Squirrel's BlendMake It Your Own
Adapt these cooking ideas to your tastes and dietary needs. Check each product's ingredient list when choosing oils, vinegars and spice blends for your kitchen.