Olives and stuff please

[janeite]

Okay - I have a couple of silly questions that I'm hoping some of you clever people will be able to help me with.

DD1 and I have recently dicovered that we like olives - ut only green ones. Which brands would you recommend please? And does anybody have any lovely recipes for us to do ourselves that involve whacking normal boring olives into olive oil and herbs and stuff?

Also does anybody have any recipes for doing a similar thing with garlic cloves. We tasted some in House Of Fraser today and they were gorgeous but nearly £4 for a teeny, tiny pot.

Tia.

Pretty please?

I too have recently fallen in love with olives, also only the green ones.

M&S do jars of Halkidiki olives which I really love. They do plain ones, or stuffed with peppers, sundried toms or feta. The olives are massive and really crunchy.

I know nothing of recipes

Crush a couple of garlic cloves in olive oil, add chilli flakes if you like, toss green olives in unction with a grind of salt and pepper, marinate or don't, and serve with cocktail sticks and napkins.

Or fill a plate with cucumber half-moons, tomatoes the same, green olives, and a couple of whole pickled chillies, and serve with houmous drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice and warm pitta slices on the side.

God I'm hungry now.

Best bet - if you're not confident with experimentation, buy the supermarket version, and if you like it, note down the ingredients, and bung them into olive oil with your olives, I can almost guarantee the homemade version will be better.

We also sometimes have warm ciabatta dipped in vinaigrette with olives on the side with a glass of wine. Num.

Snigger, will you stop it. You're making my stomach grumble!!!!

Fantastic - thank you. I'll look out for the M&S ones and I'll deffo try the olive oil and chilli flakes thing as dd1 is also a chilli fiend! She loves those whole pickled chillis too.

Any more recs/ ideas?

Me and my dc love olives too. We go to our local deli and buy them there usually. He gets them plain then puts them into olive oil with lots of crushed garlic and chopped parsley and they are lovely.

You could also try adding coriander and lime juice to the oil instead. I love the sharpness of the lime!

I agree with snigger's suggestions.

DS and I love olives, but our tight udget means I can only really afford the cheap ones in aldi or tesco, but they are fine, espeically marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, lots of garlic and finely chopped parsley or coriander.

Also nice done with chilli and chopped sundreid tomatoes.

or with finely chopped red onion and lots of feta cheese.

Yum to feta cheese. I love it but dd1 doesn't "do" cheese.

Oh good, that means more for you!

Any ideas on the garlic clove thing?

Thank you, ladies, for casting my perpetually fridge-raiding mind in the direction of feta cheese.

I have a half a pack that has to be eaten tonight.....

two good things to do with feta:

1. Slice those long red peppers lengthways and scoop out the seeds and membrane. Stuff with a mixture of mashed feta, red onion, lemon juice, black pepper and a splash of olive oil. Fill the peppers and then stick their other halves back on top. Drizzle with oil and lemon juice and bake until they start to collapse and char a bit. Yummy.

2. mash feta with some Greek yoghurt and a couple of green chillis plus lots of black pepper. Eat with pitta bread.

I have just made and eaten Thai veggie curry but I really fancy one or both of the above now!

Note to self: simultaneous drooling and gnawing motions are NOT attractive.

Hi, i
know this thread is oldish now but i havent been on mn for while and was looking the recipes now.
Well, i love olives too and as i am half Greek i will tell you of course that the best are the Greek ones {grin} 'Kalamata' are good and the ones from Crete are even better.

Are you in London? If so then you could go to Harringey (north london), -Green Lanes and Palmers Green, is where the Greek and Turkish shops are and they have huge selection, you are free to taste sample and ask questions...They are much cheaper than M&S or other big stores

Ooh thank you for bumping this: I'd forgotten about it!

Not in London I'm afraid but will keep a look out for green olives from Crete. In Zakinthos last summer we were only ever served black olives and I just can't like them.

We used to make an olive paté using ground almonds and olive oil and green olives. Add garlic, herbs and salt and pepper.

sainsburys now have a olive bar...where you can choose from a pot of all different kinds

Thanks. We do that in Waitrose but really I'd like to be able to buy cheapo ones and then make them yummy at home somehow.