Recipe for Preparing Olives

 Recipe for Preparing Olives

This year we picked enough Halkidiki olives to fill nine 2.5 liter and two 1 liter containers of olives. I call these olives "little taters" because they're so huge. Two people could share one olive and be full!

Two of the nine jars have sliced or slit olives, two have cracked (great stress reliever to crack them between two flat rocks), and the rest are whole olives. After changing water every day for one week, we prepared the brine (salamoura) this way:

1. In a 15 liter plastic barrel filled with water, we added two 500 grams bags of coarse salt and two large wooden soup spoons of limon du ju or citric acid powder. To fill these eleven jars, we made one and a half of this mixture.

2. To get this measurement, we tested with a fresh egg (Thank you, Magda and your chickens!). You've added enough salt when the fresh egg floats just to the top and only about a quarter-size area of the egg is exposed to the air. (Actually, we've been told a 1-euro coin size, but it's about the size of a U.S. quarter.)

3. Empty out the last dose of fresh water and fill with the brine to just cover the little plastic floater.

4. Top off with about a 1/2 inch of olive oil to seal. Replace the lid and keep in a dark, cool location. The cracked olives will be ready to eat in just two months. The sliced and whole take a bit longer.

If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers....

 Make your own pickled peppers...Easy!

You will need:

--a bunch of medium sized banana peppers and/or small thin skinned peppers

--red wine or apple cider vinegar

--salt

--one head of garlic

--one bouquet of broad leaf parsley

--olive oil

In a large pot, fill with water and about half cup of vinegar. Bring to boil. Blanch the peppers for about a minute (be sure to poke each pepper with a fork beforehand) and drain. Chop the parsley and sliver each clove of garlic. Set aside. In a large glass or clear plastic container, begin to layer the parsley, garlic, peppers, squirt of vinegar and a good salting. Repeat until the jar is full.  Fill to the top with olive oil. 

Leave on your kitchen counter for a day or two and then refrigerate. When you want to serve, pull out a few of the peppers along with the garlic and parsley. Save the juices/oil to make another batch when your garden says, "Enough, already!"

 

 

Too many zucchini! Here is a quick and easy casserole to make if you're asking yourself, "What do I do with all these zucchini?"

In a fairly large casserole dish, slice 5-7 medium sized zucchinis, 1-2 sliced onions, a couple of mashed garlic cloves, one tomato cubed. Toss with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Put in oven for 40 minutes at 350 F.

While that is browning in the oven, melt 1/2 stick of butter or margarine, stir in2-3 TBL flour. Then add 1 cup white wine (I used Retsina, a white Greek wine) and 1 cup milk. Bring to a simmer until thickened, then add a handful or two of Monterrey Jack or Kasseri or any cheese you like. When the vegetables are browned, pour the sauce over, sprinkle with more cheese and continue baking 10-15 minutes until the top is browned.

I just discovered a wonderful website where you can make your own word cloud. I chose this blog's words to be formed into a bird. You can choose other shapes, text, and colors and save it to use as you wish.  Go to http://www.tagxedo.com

Helidonia (swallows) live with us. When we lived upstairs, these helidonia built their architecturally sound and so efficient nests under the eaves. But when we moved downstairs to more spacious living area, we did not frequent the upstairs veranda area very often except to retrieve one more glass or to store something in the freezer. And the helidonia population dwindled. We didn't know why. We still see them from time to time and their nests still populate one side or our house, but they no longer build their nests above the sliding glass door we opened 100 times a day. There is less helidonia poop to clean up, but we miss our birdie friends. 

A neighbor sat drinking a cup of coffee with us one evening last week and asked about our helidonia. He told us that they like to build their nests and live where people live. They interact with people. The more the merrier! When we moved away, they moved away, too. Interesting phenomenon.

The other bird population we have here is the sparrow who builds nests inside our ceramic roof tiles.

Each morning we are awakened by the trill, whoop, tweet and joy of helidonia and sparrows and more birds...as yet unidentified.