These are a few of the tricks I came up with when cooking South Beach-appropriate food.

For a crispy coating on chicken, use ground nuts instead of breadcrumbs.
See: Walnut-crusted chicken

For recipes that call for green peas, use shelled edamame beans.

Instead of crackers, serve cheese or tapenade with sliced cucumber, kohlrabi, daikon, or raw chayote squash (peeled and cut in half with pit removed).

For pasta, substitute:

• Julienned zucchini or yellow squash, steamed
  See: Greek tuna over zucchini strip “pasta”
• Spaghetti squash, steamed

To add flavor and replace things like croutons, try some ingredients from your Oriental grocery store, such as:

• Bonito flakes
• Roasted seaweed
• Tiny dried shrimp

Another good high-protein ingredient, loaded with B vitamins, is nutritional yeast. It adds a rich flavor that I love more than butter on steamed vegetables. I also love it on cottage cheese.