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Home Cured Barouni Olives

October 13, 2009 by KimiHarris 23 Comments

Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in healthy eating check out my free gifts! and subscribe to get regular email updates. *Some links may be affiliate.*
Thanks for stopping by! If you're interested in healthy eating check out my free gifts! and subscribe to get regular email updates. *Some links may be affiliate.*

ng_olives(For those interested in some cooking classes in the Portland area, a dear friend, Molly, is doing a few classes come up soon, starting on the 15th. She will be doing classes on bread making and broth and soups. Check it out here, if interested).

Elena and I were sitting on the grass outside our house when the mail came last week. We were thrilled to see a heavy box among the packages. We brought it inside eagerly, and opened it to find beautiful uncured olives.

I have always loved olives, and hated how expensive they were. I also knew that many olives have preservatives or were cured in unhealthy ways. But I had never thought of curing my own! One of my sponsors has organic olives to sell (only a dollar a pound!) right now and asked if I wanted some free olives to cure myself and blog about. I answered with an emphatic yes, despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing. Curing my own gives me the advantage of knowing exactly how the olives are cured, and keeping them “raw” as well-enzymes in tact. Even if I was buying them, I would come out way ahead financially too!

With those lovely olives in front of us, it was time to get to work.

I washed them, and then cut a slit on every single one of them. Once I knew what I was doing, I fell into a rhythm. I thought about all of the hundreds of women in history who had done this simple task before and wondered how much faster they would have been at it than me!

It took me about an hour and a half to wash and cut all 25 pounds of olives.In the time it would take to watch a movie, I had a huge amount of olives ready to be cured. A good return for the time I took, I think.

I decided to brine cure them following the directions here. (It doesn’t mention green olives in the directions, but I was assured that it would work just fine for green). As I’ve never done this before, I am crossing my fingers that they turn out well. I have many weeks to wait before I find out how they taste, but I am thrilled at this chance to make my own olives without preservatives and other unsavory additions. I am hoping to get some black olives to cure as well.

I also consider this a very frugal choice, because at a dollar a pound plus shipping it comes to only 35 dollars for 25 pounds of olives. Quite the deal.  I am definitely going to consider doing this every year. Olives are a great source of nutrition. To purchase your own, you can visit my resource page.

Any other olive curers out there? I would love to have you share your experience!

*All links to sponsors generate a small income for this blog, so by supporting my sponsors you also support this blog!  *

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KimiHarris

I love beautiful and simple food that is nourishing to the body and the soul. I wrote Fresh: Nourishing Salads for All Seasons and Ladled: Nourishing Soups for All Seasons as another outlet of sharing this love of mine. I also love sharing practical tips on how to make a real food diet work on a real life budget. Find me online elsewhere by clicking on the icons below!

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Comments

  1. tarena

    October 13, 2009 at 10:52 am

    This looks wonderful! I’ll have to try it one day!
    By the way, I have been thinking recently about trying to save money by eating more seasonally…except that it is hard to hunt down and figure out what is in season and then find the right recipies to go with it! Would it be possible to have a symbol (or the whole word) next to the title of a recipie so we know what season(s) it is best to make it in?
    Something like: Butternut Pasta Sauce (F,W)
    Meaning F-fall, W-winter.
    I’m not sure if it will work as you would have to come up with something different for spring and summer…and it could be a lot of work for you.
    Just a thought!
    Thanks for all your wonderful help on your site! I love it!

    Reply
    • Moira Ten-Hove

      October 14, 2009 at 4:49 pm

      Seasonal really depends on where you live. Most seasonal cookbooks seem to originate on the west coast where winters are much milder that ours.

      Here in New England, it is easy to find summer and autumn recipes. Spring is a little tougher, but winter is downright hard. I like the Winter Vegetarian by Darra Goldstein.

      I, too, would appreciate other suggestions.
      ~Moira in MA

      Reply
  2. Carly

    October 13, 2009 at 12:11 pm

    You are truly a pioneer. I can always count on your blog to cover something I’ve never thought of before, and haven’t read about on any other blog!

    Reply
  3. Meg

    October 13, 2009 at 1:08 pm

    I just did the same thing on Sunday night, and I’m just as anxious to see how they turn out. We’re doing a salt brine on about a gallon of olives – we’re blessed to have family with trees, and for YEARS they’ve just let them fall and waste… since this is my last “fall” without another set of “helping hands” around( 😉 ), I thought I should see exactly how easy/difficult it is…

    Hurrah for trying new things! Hopefully they all turn out wonderful… and if not, hopefully they just taste “good enough”!! 🙂

    Reply
  4. Ranee @ Arabian Knits

    October 13, 2009 at 1:49 pm

    I went to your sponsor list, but couldn’t find the url for the folks with the olives. Could you make a direct link to it? Thank you.

    Reply
  5. Heather

    October 13, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    Looks like they are out of stock of the olives. (?)
    I’m really interested to know where you get your black olives.
    Looking forward to hearing how this turns out.

    Reply
  6. Erin

    October 13, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    This looks amazing!
    Would LOVE to do this too… but like a previous comment said, it looks like they are all out… 🙁 Is there a different variety that they sell that they may have in stock?
    Thanks for the idea!

    Reply
  7. KimiHarris

    October 13, 2009 at 3:38 pm

    Thanks, everyone, for letting me know that the link wasn’t working. I’ve replaced it with a direct link. It looks like they are out of stock right now, but check back, because they will probably get some more in soon!

    Reply
  8. tina

    October 13, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    They are out of stock. Darn. I’ll keeping checking to see when they are available again.

    I’m really excited about trying my hand at doing this too. It never ocurred to me that I could actually cure my own olives. I guess I just assumed that olives come from some far away place and there was some secret recipe to making olives taste yummy. Good to know they grow in California…:)

    Reply
  9. karen c.

    October 13, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    what a fantastic idea! we eat so many olives that this would be worth it!

    Reply
  10. Aletta

    October 13, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    I always use to think that black olives had been picked ripe and green ones unripe. Then I read that black olives are green olives that have been cured in a different way. You can also cure ripe olives, they are purple when raw. I live on the german border, and buy Kalomon olives at the Alnatura shop, they have been picked ripe and taste great.

    Reply
    • Aletta

      October 13, 2009 at 11:32 pm

      Ah, I see the difference stages of ripeness are nicely shown in the instructions linked at the site of your sponsor.

      Reply
  11. Chiot's Run

    October 14, 2009 at 5:54 am

    I would love to do this, hm. Perhaps I’ll order some up.

    Reply
  12. Marilyn

    October 14, 2009 at 8:02 am

    How long should brined olives last once jared? Do they have to be kept in the refrigerator?

    Reply
  13. Jenny

    October 14, 2009 at 11:42 am

    I’ve been water-curing a batch and I’m so impatient to see them ready, but I know the wait will be well worth it. I tested them yesterday (they’ve been curing about 10 days in water) to see if they were ready to brine and they were still painfully bitter. I’m excited to see them through and enjoy them when they’re ready.

    Reply
  14. Cara

    October 15, 2009 at 5:57 am

    That is really neat! I was just looking for olives that my daughter could have, and couldn’t find any (GFCF). I’ll have to give this a try.

    Reply
  15. Millie

    October 15, 2009 at 12:59 pm

    My husband is from olive country (the same area as Chaffin Family Orchards) and he grew up eating cured olives. His grandpa had a small olive business and the rumor is they used to send olives to the Queen of England. They still have olive trees on the family land but only cure for home use now. My husband loves the olives and would like for me to try to cure them. Someday…

    Reply
  16. Kimberly Hartke

    October 17, 2009 at 4:18 am

    Hi Kimi–here is my post about my olive curing experiment! Just tasted one of the olives yesterday, and all the bitterness was gone!

    http://hartkeisonline.com/2009/10/05/the-olive-oyl-experiment-curing-olives-using-traditional-methods/

    Reply
  17. Heather

    September 28, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    Hey there Kimi, I’m wondering how your olives turned out as it is that season again and I was considering trying this this year. I’m really curious if you have a minute to respond!

    Reply
    • KimiHarris

      September 28, 2010 at 3:44 pm

      Oh confession time! My salt cured olives I left too long and they got super salty and a little dried out. Oops! Then the other ones I forget to keep changing the salt water and then I just left it, mostly forgotten, in a bucket for months and months. When I finally got around to throwing them away I realized that they weren’t very rotten or anything like that (though it had developed a lot of mold at the top). If I had just taken care of them a little bit sooner, I think they would have been just fine. So, both didn’t work out very well solely because of my lack of care. I really wanted to do some more this year, but being almost 36 week pregnant, it’s probably not realistic. 🙂 With a little more care, I think they would have turned out great.

      Reply
      • Heather

        September 28, 2010 at 4:43 pm

        Thanks so much for letting me know! After I posted to ask you, I more thoroughly read about the process and I think I’m going to pass this year. I just moved so I’m not quite ready for a new project with maintenance and all. Maybe next year! 🙂

        Reply
  18. Sarah

    October 24, 2014 at 8:50 am

    I’ve done two batches of green barouni olives and just ordered some ripe ones for the first time. Do you know if I should follow the same method as for the unripe ones? Or do ripe ones call for a different method?

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Pennywise Platter Thursday 10/15 says:
    October 15, 2009 at 6:51 am

    […] week I shared my experience of curing my own olives. This is a much healtheir and cheaper way to get nutrient dense olives into your […]

    Reply

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The information you find here at The Nourishing Gourmet is meant to help you become a better cook! This site is primarily for sharing family friendly recipes. It's not meant to give medical advice or to make any health claims on the prevention or curing of diseases.This site is only for informational and educational purposes. Please discuss with your own, qualified health care provider before adding in supplements or making any changes in your diet. Also, any links to sponsors or affiliates (including Amazon) may give me a percentage of the sale or a pay per click. Thank you for supporting this site.

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