Disclosure: Â This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, Mars, Incorporated. All opinions are mine alone. #BensBeginners #UncleBensPromo #CollectiveBias
Do you have a favorite memory of your Grandma that involves cooking or a special dish? Â Do you catch a smell of a certain food that brings back feelings from a childhood holiday? Â Food is a trigger for memories and every family has their special recipes, prepared in unique ways. Â Cooking with the family is fun, good for you and a great learning opportunity for the kids.
Cooking is a family activity that can create special, forever memories! Â I wanted to create a cookbook with special recipes that my daughter could enjoy someday with her own family. Â Together, we started a “Memories Cookbook“. Â Just an easy project that can be used, changed and loved for years to come. Â Materials are simple: Â a 1-inch ring binder, sheet protectors, paper and photos. Â I used scrapbook paper (because I have an old supply) but any kind of paper will work. Â We had fun creating the pages and especially cooking together! Â Don’t worry about fancy, the homemade quality is half the charm.
Our first Memories Cookbook recipe is for Mediterranean Rice. Â It makes a delicious side dish or main course. Â It’s great for cooking with the family, because this recipe can be adjusted for the age of the family members cooking. Â The amount of preparation, pre-chopping versus assembly can be customized for the amount of skill and time available. Â A tip for cooking with kids is to keep it simple, easy, and as consistently active as possible.
Mediterranean Rice Recipe
Ingredients
1 bag of Uncle Ben’s Boil-in-Bag Enriched Long Grain Rice
1 medium cucumber
1 pint of cherry tomatoes
1 medium green pepper
1 red onion
1/2 cup of green and black olives
4 oz. chunk feta cheese
4 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 lemon juiced
1 teaspoon of dried dill
1 teaspoon of finely chopped parsley
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
salt and pepper, to taste
Directions
In a 2-quart saucepan, completely submerge one unopened bag of rice in 4 cups of boiling water. Â Boil for 10-12 minutes. Â Remove bag from water and drain. Â Cut open bag and pour contents into a mixing bowl, fluff with fork. Â Chop cucumber and green pepper into medium pieces. Â Quarter thin slices of onion to create slivers. Â Cut olives and tomatoes in halves and thirds. Â Toss together all ingredients until well mixed. Â Garnish with parsley and serve warm.
Ben’s Beginners is an initiative of Uncle Ben’s with the goal of getting kids to cook as well as they can read and write.  When kids learn to cook, they create healthy eating habits that last a lifetime.  In addition to creating memories, teaching a life skill, and the fun, did you know you can WIN by cooking together?  Five grand prize winners of the Ben’s Beginners contest will receive a check for $15,000 for their family and a check made out to the child’s school to be used toward a cafeteria makeover valued at $30,000!!  Visit the Ben’s Beginners for info on how to enter.
But wait, there’s another way to win, as well, with this easy-to-enter sweepstakes below!
Even during the busy back-to-school season, you can have fun making a simple rice dish with your family and make memories at the same time. Â Pick up some Uncle Ben’s rice at Walmart today and use this special Ibotta coupon offer ($0.75 off Ready Rice products exclusively at Walmart).
Saturday, Oct. 15th is
International Cook With Your Kids Day.
It’s a great time to start!
What will you cook?
Important links:
- More Information
- Ben’s Beginners Site
- Coupon: Ibotta offer ($0.75 off Ready Rice products exclusively at Walmart)
I love me some uncle bens rice, and I love what your doing here, I think its so important to
get your children involved with cooking, plus its fun!
@tisonlyme143
This recipe is great for us Filipinos since we love our rice. We eat it 3 times a day! More if we can! So, thanks for sharing and will try this out. :)
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This rice is tasty. Great giveaway! Thank you! :)
The rice dish sounds pretty good and the Walmart giveaway is a great prize.
This looks like a delicious dish! Thanks for sharing the recipe. I’ll have to try it. It looks so flavorful!
What a fun idea to make a Memories Cookbook. It’s already a great way to save the recipes.
The rice looks delicious!
The recipe looks great and what great way for kids to learn how to cook.
Love the recipe book idea filled with your memories, too. A great way to bond and have fun in the kitchen. Kids also learn about eating and cooking.
I love the idea of your cooking memory book; great idea! We love Uncle Ben’s rice. I have always used the quick cook rice but it’s great that they have the even-quicker rice in a bag. It’s a great tasting rice.
I am always looking for new rice recipes! I will have to make this soon!
We love rice in our family. I love Jasmine rice. When we make it with pineapple type salsa and fish – Yum! .
This is a must try recipe for me. Just won’t add the feta because my boyfriend hates it. I ‘ll have some feta in my side salad tho for sure
I love this cookbook that you made, my boys would love to do this! The recipe also looks amazing!
This looks like an awesome rice recipe.
I love that you’re doing this with your daughter. The cookbook idea is awesome and that dish looks delish! Thanks for sharing.
This Cooking Memories family cookbook is such a wonderful idea! The Mediterranean Rice recipe sounds so tasty! Thanks for sharing this post :)
THe recipe looks good so does the rice! It appears to be healthy too and thats always an extra plus.
Great idea, love the that it’s filled with recipes and memories. I always say memories are meant to be shared, because that is how they last a lifetime.
The rice dish sounds wonderful! I love Uncle Ben’s!
This is a fantastic idea and this recipe does look good!!!
I love the idea of a family cookbook. We all have favorite recipes that our grandparents or parents made, and it would be lovely to put them all in one place!
This recipe is surely worth a try! I’m going to prepare this with my daughter, she will love it especially that it has tomatoes and cucumbers! ;)
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Uncle Ben’s is my favourite rice. The recipe looks delicious!
That looks super yummy. I wish this giveaway was open to Canadians :(
I can eat rice at every meal. This recipe looks interesting.
This rice looks so yummy! Uncle Ben’s is a great brand.
Edye recently posted..Pumpkin Muffins With Walnut Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe
What a nice idea. Food is so social in our house, it always has been!
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I love rice! This is a good recipe to add to my recipe box.
This is definitely a great recipe.
We love all of the ingredients in it.
Thank you
We eat A LOT of rice. Great recipe!
I love all these Mediterranean flavors and I’ve had them as a salad but never tried it mixed with rice before.
I make a similar rice salad, only mine uses kalamata olives. It’s one of my favorite dishes.
I love the idea of a Memories Cookbook. This will be a nice project to work on with the grandchildrennn.
I really forgot about my grandma’s cookbook until I read your review!! My grandma died when she was in her 80’s & I was her first grandchild & I am 60 years old. She made a cookbook scrapbook for me. Well my grandparents moved away to California & my grandma forgot to give me the book!! Not unless she gave it to my other cousin that lived out there near her. I am upset about it all over again! My mom grew up on a farm in Iowa & her mom had some recipes for some good homemade cooking!! Everything was from scratch! She even talks about using raw milk, eggs, (straight from the cows & chickens) churning her own butter, etc., Some of these recipes were priceless to us and about or over 100 years old!
Things like these are family heirlooms and should be past on to future generations!! This would also make a great gift! I went to a wedding shower where everyone was required to bring a recipe on regular paper. The host three holed punched them and made a nice hard covered book that the recipes can be removed or some new ones added!
I’m sorry! I forgot to add that we make Uncle Ben’s rice a lot! It is a perfect side dish – flavored or just white rice!
Cooking as a family is always so fun for my kids! We call my 2 daughters Little Chef and they act as sous chefs! It always makes the food taste better when it’s made with love!
I love the memories cookbook. That is something precious to enjoy with family for a long time.
This looks and sounds supper delicious and I love that it incorporates a cucumber which would make it all the more delicious to me.
This is a recipe that my daughter and I need to try making together at home.
jweezie43[at]gmail[dot]com
Aww. I love the cooking memories book. So fun and creative! It’s fun making the memories, but I’m sure it’s also fun to put the book together, too.
I’m honestly, not a big fan of rice, but the way that you guys made it, I bet I would love it. It seriously looks so yummy!
I’m a fan of anything with olives and feta cheese, I’m sure this one will be no exception. Cute with the memory cookbook!
This rice dish looks delicious! I’m a huge rice fan.
Oh, that Mediterranean Rice recipe looks amazing and so fresh! Thanks for sharing it, going to go on the menu to try next week!
I love rice. This recipe is good for some, but I don’t think I’d add some of the ingredients in mine.
I am always looking for different types of recipes with rice
I like rice, and I like to make it for my family. I purchased a rice cooker.
The Easy Family Cookbook and Mediterranean Rice Recipes look astounding. I cannot wait to taste your special Mediterranean recipes. I thank you so much for the directions on these delicious treats.
This recipe sounds really good and a dinner my whole family ould love. We love rice and I happen to have alot at the moment so I’m going to give this a try. Thanks for sharing.