Home made OLIVES?!?!?!

My olives - after many had already been eaten

I live in the northeastern part of the US, so I don't get to see olives growing on trees anywhere close to where I live. But my lineage includes Italian and Mediterranean (Sicilian) blood, and I love olives - every incarnation of them - and my young boys are learning. My husband remains unconvinced - and it's the one food he will not willingly even try.
Ok, so, I did try a "candied" version of olives, purchased in Chinatown more than 15 years ago, and I will NEVER need to do that again. And black canned olives should just be BANNED, but otherwise...olives are my friend.
So, last November, when I brought home 2 small plastic wrapped styrofoam trays of bright green, hard-as-rocks, globes, the kids were curious, but my husband was not even remotely amused. I'd brought the enemy home to roost.
I, however, remember my grandfather bringing them home and making them into delicious morsels of briny goodness, so when I'd seen them, sitting lonely and abandoned in the reduced produce section of the local veggie mart, I had to give it a try.

Grampy - ca 1956 (10 years before I was born)

I googled, and searched my memory and taste buds...but the memories are so old and no in my living family remembers how grampy made his olives, just the vague recollection of a mallet, salt and oil. So I had to start from scratch with info found on-line.
I wasn't even sure how my experiment would go so I only have pictures of the finished product.
I looked at a lot of recommendations on many sites, but
I ended up using the notes and process written by Hank at Honest Food.
I slit each olive with a sharp knife down to the pit, and I put them in a canning jar with fresh water, put a small plate on top to push all of the olives under. Then put the jar in the "garage" cabinet in my kitchen, and changed the water - trying for daily - for about a month.
Honestly, it was during the holiday season, so there were times when I'd forget about them for a day or two....and I may have done this for closer to 5 weeks, until I was good and ready to look up the brine recipe again.

Grampy with my mom and uncle

Somewhere around the 2 week mark, when I would change the water I'd smell the familiar olive oil smell as I drained and re-filled the jar. During this time, my kids were skeptical, my husband was tolerant...
He was fairly certan that this experiment would end up as compost.

I took vacation time from my day-job during the Christmas/New Year week and decided that I should probably do-up the olives when I was relaxed and not running from one place to another...and before they really did become compost.

So I re-did my google search, found Hank's site again, and pretty much followed his brine recipe verbatim. It is really really easy:

Green Olive Brine:

1/4 cup kosher salt
4 cups cool water    
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
plus herbs 

I went with the following of his recommendations: bay leaves, coriander, lemon rind, a chili,  rosemary, and garlic.
 
As Hank said - "these water-cured olives taste like olives" — mine are only very slightly bitter, and they are much crisper and firmer than any you will get at a deli counter.  

He also says that they will last a year in the fridge....I will be lucky if they last a couple of months of judicious rationing...next time  - yes, there will be a next time - I'm making more!

Thanksgiving is Coming!!!

Wow! Thanksgiving is almost here and for the first time in MANY years I will not be cooking.
I'm not hosting, and I'm not going to a relative's home with a side dish...I'm going to be on vacation and will probably be eating my turkey in a restaurant.

Now, I usually LOVE hosting Thanksgiving because it means making the turkey - which we always brine Alton Brown style.
The sides are typically the traditional.....mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, bread and sausage dressing (never stuffed into the turkey!), cranberry sauce and applesause.

But I was thinking, what if you're tired of those typical sides? What would you make?
So I dug into my archives for some inspiration:

For some simple pre-turkey munchies you could put out some pickles! They're crispy, zesty, nutritious, you can make them WAY ahead of time, and you can plan in variety!

For a twist on the use of pumpkin/squash/sweetpotatoes you could do a soup! If you don't want the Thai influence simply leave out the curry powder and the coconut milk and add some allspice and nutmeg and you've got a nice standard butternut squash soup starter to your meal.

Instead of the usual greenbean casserole you could try a greenbean saute! And it's one less item for the oven!

If you have the time, fresh applesauce is a real treat!

And to finish the day Thanksgiving Cookies can't be beat....of course they are good ANY time!
Please share your traditions or breaks from tradition with me!

Whatever your traditions and whatever you make, I hope your Thanksgiving is delicious and good for your soul!

Pickles Revisited

Most of my family LOVES pickles...and I must admit that I'm willing to take that to extremes sometimes. As my husband commented to the FB universe this summer..."My wife will pickle anything".
He's pretty close to the truth.

When it came harvest time this year - as characterized by having so much produce in the house that it causes fear and induces dreams of never eating anything but again - it is time to pickle.
To save some time for myself this year I used only the 2 brines that I used last year and posted here. What I changed was the veggies I used.

Into the Sweet'nSalty Brine I tossed:
Cauliflower florets
Zucchini
Kohlrabi
Daikon Radish
Beans
Pepper Slices

The Garlic Dill Brine got:
Cauliflower
Cucumber
and Beans

The beans were blanched after last year's beans shrivled after a few months. They were still tasty but didn't look very pretty. And, since I'd never pickled cauliflower before I did 50/50 blanched vs raw.

I have also made a late addition to the Garlic Dills....after picking the green tomatoes off of the vines at the end of the season, I put all of the green cherry tomatoes into the brine. I cut x's on the bottom of the tomatoes so that there would be a means for the brine to penetrate the tough tomato skin easier, and early taste-tests have proven to be pretty yummy!

Easy Refridgerator Pickles - 2 styles

Garlic Dills

1Qt Water

1/2 C Salt

1 C white vinegar

8-12 Pickling Cucumbers

Garlic & Dill to taste

1-2 Quart Size Mason Jars / Jars from Tomato Sauce or any Large container

(I used a plastic container initially and moved them to jars after I found some that would work)

Wash pickles, quarter and put in jars with garlic and dill.

Mix salt, water and vinegar and pour over pickles filling jars. (Any large jars will do.)

Leave pickles at room temperature for 3 days.

Refrigerate after that.

Sweet & Salty Slices (with mixed veggies)

sliced onions

green peppers, cut in strips

Green or Yellow Beans

Daikon Radish slices

AND

Enough sliced cucumber to fill a gallon jar (do not peel cucumbers)

4 c. sugar

3 c. vinegar

1/3 c. pickling salt (not iodized)

1 tsp. turmeric

1 1/2 tsp. celery seed

1 tsp. mustard seed

If you don't have a gallon jar you can also use Quart or Pint sized Mason jars...of course any jars will do as these will not be sealed.

Wash and slice veggies and put them in your jars.

(I made 1 jar with just yellow beans and onion slices, and put a mix of veggies in the other jars)

Mix sugar, vinegar and spices together in a pitcher or bowl with a spout until sugar is dissolved.

Pour liquid over vegetables in jar.

Mixture may not completely cover pickles, that's ok.

Refridgerate.

Ready to eat the next day.

Will keep all winter in refrigerator.

In the picture these don't look as yellow as they became later from the tumeric. They are both very yummy!