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.