Food I'm Eating: Olives 2022

Olives are on my mind. This year I was able to procure some good fresh olives from a friend. They've been in brine now for about three weeks (the brine changed out once a week) and will probably require another month or so before I'll start adjusting the final salinity and adding some flavorings. I like to finish them off by adding a little vinegar, a little lemon juice, rosemary, and crushed garlic cloves.

If they turn out this year, they should be tasty. Over the years of occasional olive brining I've had some go bad before they were finished, but this batch seems to be making good progress. 

Foods I'm Eating: 2019-2020 Season Homemade Olives

Just about 100 days ago (November 10, 2019) I started a batch of olives curing. Yesterday I was finally able to bottle them. These took much longer than any I've made in the past, but, by going through my own posts here about olive-making, I see that I started these much earlier than any I've done in the past. Presumably, the riper the fruit, the faster they cure. In the past, it's taken six to eight weeks for the olives to finish curing, but using olives harvested as late as mid-February—that is, harvested right about now.

Anyway, after more than three months, we have fresh homemade olives again. As in the past, I've done them up with rosemary, a bay leaf, a quarter lemon, and garlic. I like to put them in a shallow dish to soak a little in olive oil with more garlic, lemon, and rosemary before eating them, too. Delicious.

Food I'm Eating: Green Olives (March 2017)

I've been making black olives at home for the past few years now, making batches whenever able to get my hands on good olives. I'd never tried green olives before, but this year I had access to a tree that still had green fruit in January, so I thought I'd give it a go. They are now done. The process was much the same as for black olives, but I started with a plain water soak for about ten days, changing the water every day, before switching to brine with a change every three or four days. I finished them with just a little bay, lemon juice, and white wine vinegar added toward the end, mostly the vinegar. I've always brined the black olives from the start and finished them with garlic, lemon, and rosemary. Both methods have resulted in some pretty tasty olives. Green olives seem to finish more quickly than black olives, suggesting the ripe fruit has more of the bitter compounds that make unprocessed olives inedible.

Food I'm Eating: Curing Green Olives (January 2017)

I've cured ripe black olives in the past, olives from the tree in our yard and from a neighbor's tree, but never tried to cure green olives before. Usually olives are starting to ripen here as early as October, depending on variety, and nearly all are fully ripe by December. I had access this year to a number of trees at a winery tasting room where I work part-time. One of the trees has green fruit even now. I don't know what variety it is, but I decided to try green olives.

Recipes for curing black olives with brine always start with salt water from day one. Most green olive recipes, however, recommend soaking the olives in fresh water to start and then finishing them in brine. Recommended water soaks seem to range from four days to a month, with many recipes recommending 10 days. I'll probably seek a middle path and try waiting about two weeks before switching to brine. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, large ripe olives from another tree at the tasting room were already looking good in early November. Those olives are now finishing in brine with a touch of vinegar, lemon juice, rosemary and several crushed cloves of garlic. They are just about ready (below).

Food I'm Eating: Sparkling Olives, Anyone? (March 30, 2013)

About a week ago I bottled up the first of two batches of olives I've been making. These are a small variety from a tree that grows in our garden. The second batch is still in the brine stage. They are larger olives from a neighbor's tree that take longer to lose their bitterness. I was looking at the bottled olives yesterday and noticed that the metal lids of the mason jars I used looked somewhat puffy. Suspicious, I opened one and found a fairly vigorous fermentation going on.

Carbonated olives? A bit strange, but the bubbles dissipated overnight (I left the jars open). The olives do have a slight prickle, however. Not unpleasant and the flavor otherwise is great, but I wonder what happened? I did NOT refrigerate the jars after closing them. Perhaps I should have. Perhaps the brine they are packed in was too weak? I decided to add a teaspoon of wine vinegar and a teaspoon of salt to each of the jars and I put them in the refrigerator this time. I hope the fermentation stops. I need an olive guru to tell me what's going on....

In the meantime, I keep eating them.

Food I'm Eating: Olives 2013--First Batch Finished (March 22, 2013)

I bottled our first batch of 2013 olives the day before yesterday. These are made from our own tree--smaller than those from our neighbor's tree. The larger olives are still a little bitter, so I changed the brine they're in and will give them another week or so. I brined these smaller ones on February 10, so they took about five weeks to make, which seems typical for the smaller variety. I bottled up about six pints. The lemons, wine vinegar, garlic, and herbs I added this year give them quite a nice flavor.

Food I'm Eating: Olives 2013 (March 5, 2013)

The olives are coming along nicely. They've been in brine for going on a month now. I started them on February 10. Two years ago when I made olives I simply brined them. This year, following a recipe my neighbor used, I left them in brine for the first three weeks, but a few days ago I drained them and put them in containers with new brine, substituting a quarter cup of red wine vinegar for some of the water and added lemons, bay leaves, and a mix of herbs, including rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and savory--in a typical herbs de Provence sort of blend. The rosemary is from the garden. The smaller olives (I used two varieties, one from our own tree, one from a neighbor's tree) are nearly ready. In fact, I may transfer them back to plain brine sooner rather than later so they don't take on too much of the vinegar character. The larger ones are still somewhat bitter and will require another week or so. The brining seems to take about five to six weeks. So far, they look (and taste) very promising. To see the original post on this blog about this year's olives or about making olives in past years, search on "olives" in the search box.