Kalamata Olive Tapenade

My husband and I took a week long across California road trip. Hitting all of the best winery hot spots including Paso Robles, Sonoma, and Napa. At one of our stops we visited the BR Cohn Winery in Glen Ellen the heart of Sonoma Valley. We tasted samples of their olive oils and stumbled upon this delicious BR Cohn Kalamata Olive Tapenade. My husband doesn’t like vegetables what so ever. For him to actually like this dip was a breakthrough. He wanted to buy the jar so we could snack on it throughout our trip. We polished it off and I told him I would work on creating a replica of his now favorite tapenade. We think the reason he liked it so much is because it was pureed so much that there are not actually chunks of olives. It’s is almost creamy. Here is my spin on their delicious tapenade. Feel free to add in additional ingredients if it doesn’t meet your taste, for example: fresh chopped garlic, Chardonnay wine, pepper, some cayenne seasoning for heat, etc. Have fun with it.

Ingredients:

1 jar = 12 oz. Pitted Kalamata Olives in olive oil from Trader Joe’s, drained = 6.5oz. of olives and save juice

1 Tbsp. non-pareil capers

½ tsp. garlic powder

¼ tsp. kosher salt

½ tsp. white wine vinegar

½ tsp. of juice from the olive jar

Directions:

Drain your jar of olives and save the juice off to the side. There are roughly 86 olives in the jar

In a food processor, lightly chop the olives for a couple seconds, and then transfer those to a large bowl

Add the capers into the food processor and lightly chop for a couple seconds, transferring those into the chopped olive bowl

In a small bowl stir together in the garlic powder, kosher salt, white wine vinegar, and ½ tsp. of juice from the olive jar. Note: if you don’t buy kalamata olives in olive oil, then just add about 1 tsp. of olive oil to the seasoning mixture

Transfer the olive/caper and small bowl of seasonings to the food processor and blend until creamy

You can put this olive paste out with a cheese and meat platter at any party and serve the olive tapenade on crackers, baguettes, or focaccia bread. Even perfect as a spread on a sandwich!

Purchase this tapenade from BR Cohn:

http://shop.brcohn.com/SHOP.AMS?LEVEL=BOT&PART=80813506-6

http://www.brcohn.com/Trade/OliveOil/Tapenade_KalamataOlive_label.pdf