A recipe developer with Greek heritage shares her 2 favorite Mediterranean diet recipes

Maria Koutsogiannis is a recipe developer and author of the cookbook "Greek Out." Andrei Barb Maria Koutsogiannis, a recipe developer, draws inspiration from her summers spent in Greece. Koutsogiannis follows a Mediterranean-style diet focused on veggies, lean protein, and legumes. She shared two of her favorite Greek-inspired recipes. Maria Koutsogiannis remembers her yiayia making makaronia me kima — a Greek-style spaghetti with meat sauce — for her and her siblings on repeat as a child. Each summer, she'd spend three months in her parents' home country, Greece, and soak up the aromas of classic Mediterranean dishes. Growing up in Saskatchewan, Canada, these yearly trips were her introduction to the Mediterranean diet and lifestyle. "We had homes in the city of Astros, which is a coastal city, where we'd go to the beach, and we were lucky enough to just bathe in the sun all day.