Gourmet at Home: Olive Tapenade

We love olives.  We do.  Because we love olives we almost always have a variety of them on hand in the fridge.  Recently, I was checking out the specialty items in the deli at my local grocery store and I noticed some Tapenade - it came in what might have been a 4 or 6 ounce jar - and they were charging $4.99 a jar!  I was both appalled at the price and reminded how easy it is to make yourself.  So I decided to show you how too.



There's really no recipe needed, just use 2 or 3 of your favorite types of olives, chop them up and serve with crackers or bread and your favorite cheeses, charcuterie and fruit or nuts and you have the perfect summer picnic, easy light dinner or cocktail party platter.  Check it out:

Ciao!

Sometimes Simple Is All You Need

Some nights I just crave simplicity.  Case in point:  Traffic was horrible tonight - 20 minutes into my commute home, I was still only a couple of miles from the office where I work.  By the time I finally reached the final third of my drive, I had made up my mind that we would have a simple dinner of bread, cheese, fruit and olives... But I needed bread and olives.  *sigh*  I was almost 45 minutes late when I finally arrived home.  I was feeling out of sort and I just didn't want to spend time making dinner (I didn't want to spend a lot of time cleaning up either). Some nights are just like that and sometimes a simple meal really is all you need.

The bread is a rustic baguette that was chewy and airy, the apple is a Granny Smith - one of our favorites - which have been particularly good lately.  The cheese is a locally made, fabulously sharp, white cheddar, and the olives are jumbo Calabrese blend.

"Snacky" Dinner

As much as I love to cook (and eat!), there are nights when I just don't want to work at making dinner.  Particularly on the warmer summer days when I don't want to heat up the kitchen, or at the end of an especially stressful work week, I just want easy, easy, easy.  Often times, the temperature of the meal is as much a deciding factor as the work involved - for instance if I'm in the mood to fix a meal, but jut want something cool and refreshing, I might throw together a salad for dinner - taco salad and greek salad are always favorites in our house, or we might have deli-style sandwiches on crusty rolls.  Then there is "Snacky Dinner".  Steven & I have always been fans of what I really think of as an indoor picnic - olives, rustic bread, an assortment of cheeses, fresh fruit, wine and some Pacific Northwest alder smoked salmon or a nice hunk of salami. 

Sometimes we enjoy an assortment of finger foods that can be eaten in front of the TV so we can enjoy a movie marathon or at the game table during family game-night (something we are LONG overdue for).  These might include appetizers that I make for parties like tortilla roll-ups, or taco bites (won-ton skins filled with a taco-like filling - I'll post the recipe another time) or other party-type foods like chicken wings, homemade artichoke-jalapeno dip with chips, nachos, sausage rolls or a deli-meats and cheese platter set out with  assorted cocktail breads and condiments like mayo or mustard. 

I remember Steven & I attempting to introduce these as "snack meals", more like something you'd enjoy at a party.  You assemble a little plate of goodies, nibble on them while playing cards ot mingling with guests, then later, you might assemble another plate with a few more items - just nibbling as you go, rather than filling a plate and eating non-stop until you're stuffed. This concept has never really caught on with our children, they enjoy the food (very mucy, in fact), but they just feel compelled eat until they are satisified, all in one go, so in our house if there's something you especially enjoy, you better move quick before the kids finish it off! 

Somewhere along the lines our "picnic" meal of bread, cheese, fruit, etc. was christened "Snacky Dinner".  If our youngest, Amanda, sees a loaf of bread and some cheese out near dinner time, she immediately announces we're having "Snacky Dinner".  It's a meal that is always greeted with much enthusiasm.  There's plenty of room for you to add your own twist and I find it's nice to know that my family is really just as happy with such a simple meal as a more complex one that requires real attention at the stove!