Monday, January 23, 2012

Roasted Garlic Olive Tapenade

I loooooove olives so why not make a spread full of 'em?  Over Christmas, one of the hors d'oeuvres my mother in law Nancy had at her Christmas party was crostini with olive tapenade and it was DEELISH. 

I wanted to give this a little twist so I added roasted garlic and balsamic to an otherwise traditional recipe.

Here are our ingredients:

Pitted Kalmata Olives
Olive Oil
Pitted Green Olives
Roasted Garlic
Garlic
Lemon
Balsamic Vinegar 

I pulsed both of the olives as well as the roasted and fresh garlic to chop it up.  I then added the rest of the ingredients and blended.  I have an amazing olive bar at my local grocery store with roasted garlic cloves, but if you don't have something like this available you can easily make your own.  Check out this step by step guide.

This is the texture you want.  Yummy.  Check for seasoning.  Mine needed a little salt and pepper so I sprinkled some in and pulsed again.

You can toast your crostini or leave it as is.  I left the bread as is because it was crusty and chewy and already the perfect texture.  If you toast it, just drizzle a little olive oil over the bread.

Charlie hates olives as much as I hate fat free anything.  He tried this and although he wasn't crazy about it, he said that he could understand why people really love this.  The fact that he didn't spit it out, gag, throw it on the floor and kick me out of the condo means olive lovers out there will go bananas over this.

Spread on a generous layer...

...and make a few extra for yourself.  Enjoy and stay hungry! 

Roasted Garlic Olive Tapenade Recipe 
2 Cups Pitted Kalmata Olives
1/4 Cup Olive Oil
1/2 Cup Pitted Green Olives
1/4 Cup Roasted Garlic Cloves
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Tbs Lemon
1 Tbs Balsamic Vinegar 
Salt & Pepper 

Mix all ingredients together in a food processor until well incorporated.  Serve with crostini and enjoy! 

2 comments:

  1. This looks so easy! I want to make it tonight!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I lovvvveeee olive tapenade. Finally a great recipe! I love your photos, they are just gorgeous.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for taking the time to comment!