Spiced Green Olives (p. 50)

We've been really enjoying marinated olives lately, but I'm running out of recipes. In fact, this is the last one. Unlike the other two recipes, this one calls for green olives, which I've actually never tried before (I'm new to olives.)

Rinse the olives in a colander and toss them dry in a paper towel. 

In a skillet, combine fennel, coriander, and cardamom seeds and warm until they begin to give off fragrance -- this only took two or three minutes. 

The recipe calls for the seeds to then be put in a coffee mill or spice grinder briefly, until they are a coarse texture. I don't have a coffee mill, so I had to work on them in a mortar instead. It took about five minutes, but I think I was able to achieve pretty much the same texture.

Combine the spices with olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon and orange juices. Mince garlic and stir this in as well. The recipe also calls for an optional salt-cured lemon, which is a whole separate recipe that I haven't yet tackled, so I left that out. Instead I added extra lemon juice and zest. 

Mix the olives in with the marinade and leave them for at least 6 hours before serving. 

So, the marinade for this is really good, but I think I just don't enjoy green olives. Maybe with time, I'll learn to love them like I have black olives, but I'm just not there yet. Matt liked them, though.

green olives -- $7.19

cardamom seeds -- $8.48 (Yes, these are expensive. I've been holding off on buying any, but they keep coming up in recipes, so I finally caved. They'll last forever.)

fennel seeds -- $1.96 (tons left over)

lemon -- $.79

Total Cost of Spiced Green Olives : $18.42 (though really most of that is the cardamom seeds)