Last night Roberto and I attended a blind wine tasting hosted by a couple of our friends here in Virginia. The tasting part of the evening was really excellent – a fun excuse to sample multiple wines, debate your spouse about flavors and pretend not to be cheating while conversing with friends. We had a great time.
Like all the guests, we brought appetizers to accompany the wine. I wanted to make something simple but intriguing and found just the thing: roasted olives. What appealed to me is that the recipes I found took a familiar dish and made it more interesting. La Fuji Mama and Lindsay Olives gave me a good basis to start, but because this was our kitchen, there was a certain amount of improv. Here’s what we did:
- 1 16oz jar Garlic Stuffed Olives
- 1 16oz jar Pimento Stuffed Olives
- 1 12 oz jar Kalamata Olives
- 12 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tbs Herbs de Provence
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 1 lemon
- Equipment: medium bowl, 13×9 casserole dish, serving bowl
- Preheat oven to 425.
- Drain the olives and put them in a medium bowl.
- Mix in the olive oil, garlic, and Herbs de Provence.
- Zest the lemon and add the zest to the mixture.
- Juice the lemon into the mixture and stir thoroughly.
- Spread the mixture in a 13×9 casserole dish
- Bake for 20 minutes.
- Allow to cool, then transfer to a serving bowl and serve at room temperature with crackers or alone.
Roberto did all the chopping, zesting and juicing and let me supervise. We loved the result and so did our friends. In this case we served them with crackers and made toothpicks available. Though our dish was enjoyed, there were enough leftovers to bring home. We chopped up some of the olives in our Cuisinart and spread them on crackers for an afternoon snack. Oh, and we baked some of the chopped mixture on chicken breasts for dinner tonight…