This salad is so tasty- its flavour and texture are both wonders in the mouth. Whether the main side dish for your supper or one of many dishes in a buffet, this salad holds its own and will have your friends and family coming back for more!
Salata Tahini
What isn’t made better by having tahini draped over it? Not much. This is my favourite Salata Arabia with a delicious tahini saucy dressing mixed into it. Excellent with meat and rice dishes.
Maha’s Fattet Beitinjan
I was tired from a day visiting farmers, but as I listened to my friend Samer enthusiastically talking about our work, I was slowly perking up. I was sat in Samer’s lovely house in Nablus eating the plentiful delicious dishes his wife had cooked for us with the soft chatter and banging from his three children in the next room. Samer’s passion for story-telling and the charming way he giggles as he talks was raising a smile on my face. ‘Seriously, Phoebe, you don’t understand. We literally saved the Palestinian Almond. You and me. We had a vision and we did it- hundreds of farmers thank us for that’ Samer is referring to programme we implemented with his extraordinary research to stop a pest from taking over and completely destroying all of Palestine’s almonds. The situation was so bad that almond farmers where ripping up their trees or abandoning them all together. I don’t know if he is right about our impact or my role in it, but I hope he is.
Fattet Hummus
My mother has always told me about how the doctor who attended my birth said he had never seen a family so happy to have a baby girl- after all, in Palestine boys are highly prized and all respectable families have at least a few! Rumour has it that my father jumped so high that his head touched the ceiling, and I like to think that is true. ‘I really didn’t think I could have girls you see’, my mother confided in me as we tucked into this dish one lunch time as my new born son slept next to us in the mosses basket. After her two boys and a few miscarriages, my mother felt like she was simply a mother of boys. Strangely, I have secretly felt the same in the last two months since Rupert was born. Even though I had always had my heart set on having two boys, I do wonder if the baby I lost last year was a girl and I do hope that I will one day have one. Just like my Mama and maybe Christopher will jump high enough to touch the ceiling too.
Courgette Spaghetti with Avocado Basil Pesto
If you don’t have a spiralizer in your kitchen, you really should get one. I am not a fan of having gadgets for the sake of it, but to eat consciously and healthily I do think you need a few things, including a juicer, blender and of course a spiralizer. I use mine daily and could not be without them.
Griddled Baby Aubergines with Heritage Tomatoes, Mint and Tahini
I am normally not particularly fond of tahini as a dressing, but drizzled over these aubergines and tomatoes it is quite delicious. this is a simple recipe that makes a nice lunch or a side to a larger meal at the weekend, especially my sumac roasted chicken.
Griddled Aubergines with Toasted Pine Nuts
I have had a very complicated relationship with aubergines in my life. When I was tiny, I used to push it off my plate and now I surreptitiously give myself bigger portions as I simply cannot get enough!
Fattoush
Fattoush is a salad. And this salad tastes like home. As a child I would finish the dinner on my plate and then finish the rest of this salad straight out of the serving bowl. I still serve it in the same old cracked bowl my Mama used to, which she handed down to me when my husband and I bought our first home.
Salata Arabia
When I eat this salad I am transported back to the Jordan Valley, where I spend a lot of time with farmers who are being supported by the livelihoods programme I run. As I get out of the car at 8am into the perfectly dry heat, I am ushered over to an upturned pallet that has a bowl of this salad on it with a plate of Labneh, fresh and warm bread and sweet sweet tea. They grow all the ingredients for this salad right here; fresh and proud. I sigh with relief as I have missed breakfast to get here so early, I have been in the car for hours. I tuck in, while hearing about how things have been since my last visit. The good, the bad and the ugly.
Read MoreWarm Roasted Red Pepper & Multi-Coloured Tomato Salad
In autumn I love to eat food that is deep red, orange and yellow in colour to match the trees turning colour outside. These colours always feel so hearty and delicious mixing deep wintery flavours with mild summer sweetness. I eat lots of salads in the summer, and this dish is the perfect way to welcome in the new colder season, as it’s still a salad but served warm; perfect for autumn days before the cold of winter really sets in.
The Olive Tree Kitchen 