Pickled Green Olives Mediterranean Style Recipe

Yesterday, I pickled my first batch of Green Olives!!

Pickled Green Olives are a table staple across the Middle East region. We serve pickled green olives for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Olives and olive oil are part of our tradition and culture. The olive tree is not only valued for it’s beauty and fruit, but is also considered a sacred and blessed tree.

Olive trees have been cultivates in this region for centuries and there is historical evidence that olive oil was traded as early as 3000 B.C. Throughout the hills of Jordan you will see olive groves that are thousands of years old. They were planted by the Romans!!

Most of the olive trees that exist on earth are in the Mediterranean region. Where I live, olive trees are planted on the sidewalks of most roads in the city, and there is hardly a house that doesn’t have at least one olive tree planted in the garden.  I live in an apartment building with no garden, but we have four olive trees planted on the sidewalk in front of the building. 

Usually, olives are not picked from the trees until the first rain comes and washes the trees and quenches their thirst after a long, hot, dry summer.  We had our first big rain this week, so the picking season started and now all the market is filled with green olives ready to be pickled. Later this months, farmers will start taking their fruit to extract pure olive oil.

Green and black olives come from the same tree, The black ones are the ripened fruit that were left on the trees longer. They are softer and filled with more oil.

Both green and black olive fruits are pickled in this region, but the recipe for Pickled Green Olives differs from the recipe for Pickled Black Olives. Today’s recipe is for Pickled green olives which I learned from my friend Rula. She get’s full credit for it, as the recipe was so perfect, I didn’t even bother with trying other variations!!

Rainbow Cupcakes Recipe

My youngest daughter wanted rainbow cupcakes for her birthday party. She has been asking for them every since she saw them on the web… you can say it was love at first sight!!!

Well, I cannot blame her… these bright, colorful, attractive mini delights are a definite kid pleaser. Even us, the older kids, cannot but be magically drawn to them. Although they may appear to be difficult to put together, these delightful cupcakes are quite simple to make.

Many of the recipes I saw online used ready-mix white cake. I am sure these cupcakes will turn well with ready mix cakes, but personally I like to make my cakes from scratch! I like to know exactly what is in them, plus I usually like to reduce the sugar in my cakes... a habit I picked up when I was trying to lose that extra pregnancy weight. LOL… I am sure that the best way to fast lose that weight was to cut all kinds of sweet, but what can I say… I am defenseless when it comes to sweets.

I was divided between using my lemon cake recipe or my vanilla cake recipe. Both are light in color, which would work well when coloring. Plus both cakes are moist and yummy and their batter is not too liquidy so the different colors will hold shape.  I decided to use the vanilla cake batter as I was a little worried that not all 9-year olds might appreciate the refreshing, light flavor of lemon cake. 

These cupcakes look amazing and are guaranteed to brighten your party and bring a smile to the kids’ faces!

Chicken with Onions Recipe

Boiled then baked chicken with lots of onions, served over plain rice, or Freekeh, or Arabic-style rice stuffing is a typical Arabic dish!!!

The traditional serving way for serving Chicken with Onions is to spread the cooked rice, Freekeh or Arabic-style rice stuffing in a large serving tray, then pile the chicken and onions on top. We then sprinkle toasted or fried pine nuts and almonds on top.

It is normally served with cucumber yoghurt salad, or a mixed lemony salad. I love the Freekeh or Arabic-style rice stuffing with the cucumber yogurt salad with its garlicy flavor.  

In addition to it being very tasty, Chicken and Onions is very easy to prepare and probably that is why it is very popular to serve Chicken and Onions with Freekeh or Arabic-style rice stuffing in large gatherings and parties. It is a guaranteed crowd pleaser with minimum effort!

The recipe below is for 1 chicken, increase it depending on the number of servings you want. Also, at home we love it with lots of onions, as you will notice from the recipe. If you don’t fancy the onions you can cut them to half.

Freekeh Recipe

In the Western Countries when you want to prepare lunch or dinner the main carbs that come to mind are rice, pasta, potatoes or bread. Rarely does anyone think of Freekeh. Freekeh (pronounced: Free-keh), very popular in the Middle East, is smoked green wheat. Freekeh was first discovered about 2300 years before Christ, in a small village in the Levant area.

Time were tough, the village was under siege! So the village folks decided to harvest their wheat crop early and they then burnt their green wheat. Soon afterwards, they noticed that when they rub the burnt outer layer of the wheat, there were green grains inside. These green grains are what we call Freekeh. Now you know why it is called smoked green wheat, as the wheat is burnt to prepare it.

Freekeh has a distinct smoky, nutty flavor that I love!!! While my attempts to get the family to eat healthier food through trying to introduce brown rice and whole wheat pasta have been disastrously unsuccessful (nobody liked the flavors), luckily everyone in my household loves Freekeh!

Freekeh is very nutritional, even more than brown rice as it has 4 times higher fiber content plus more protein, calcium, iron and zinc. On top of that Freekeh has lower fat content. Perfect wouldn’t you say?!?

Freekeh is sold either as larger grains (used in today’s recipe) that are served as a side dish just as rice, or small cracked grains used to prepare soups, check my yummy chicken freekeh soup. Try Freekeh with my Chicken with Onions recipe. 

Decorated Ice Cubes

I have been browsing the net lately for birthday ideas for my little one. There are SO MANY great ideas out there!!! I was astound! So stay tuned as I share with you more of those in the coming few weeks.

One of the things I liked a lot are these decorated ice cubes at We Share Ideas. They are so attractive! So simple! So easy to make! And, I think it is safe to say, they will be a main attraction at your next dinner party or gathering. It is difficult to imagine that they will not leave a lasting impression with your guest.