Jembella Farm: Olives

Saturday 30 May 2015

Olives

It's olive season and here in the Barossa there are plenty of olive trees to pick from. I pick mine from the same secret location each year. They are big and plentiful and so easy to pickle.
In years past I tried to pickle olives but the disposal of buckets full of salt water every couple of days was a big problem. Where to tip it without it getting it into the soil, drains, and waterways?
I gave up on pickling olives.

A few years later I found another recipe that is so quick and easy. The jars last for years, we're currently eating some that I pickled in May 2011. I think they actually improve over time.

You will need;
A bucket (or 2, depending on how many olives you're going to pickle) to soak the olives in.
Some clean jars with screw top lids.
Rain water
Fresh garlic, lemon, fennel seeds, chilli or which ever flavors you want in your olives.
Salt
A big saucepan to make the brine.

Put olives into a plastic (food grade) bucket and cover with rain water. I use both green and black olives all mixed in together as this is how they come when we pick them.
Stir them around a little with your hand and leave them soak.
Change the water every day for 3 days.
On the 4th day when you're ready to put the olives into jars, make a 10% brine. (To 1 litre of boiling water add 100g of salt) Allow to cool for 5 minutes before using.
Drain the olives and put into clean glass jars, adding a couple of slices of garlic, a few fennel seeds, a piece of chilli, a thin slice of lemon, or none of these if you prefer.
Cover with the hot brine, and screw on the lids.
Write the date on the jars and store in a dark place for 6 months.
They ferment in the jars and sometimes ooze so I suggest you sit the jars in a plastic container to catch the spills.
Taste after 6 months. Sometimes they need longer. Keep in fridge after opening.
Play around with the flavours and wait to see the end result in a few months time. Then you can adjust the following year.
We have planted a few varieties of olive trees here and look forward to crops in the future. I love the trees and wouldn't really care if they give us olives or not.
Half the fun is in the searching for your olives and picking them just at the right time.
Do you pickle olives?
Do you have another recipe to share?
What things do you make from your pickled olives?

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Us

Whether you're living in an apartment, in a house in the suburbs or on acres, you can live frugally and sustainably. There are many things you can do to save money, eat ethically and healthily, reduce waste and live an enriched life.
We are Sally and Brian and we live in the Barossa Valley (South Australia) in a 100 year old house on sixteen acres with 2 dogs, 7 cows, 2 alpacas, 5 geese, 35 chickens, 78 sheep and a few bee hives.
Our way of life takes team work and dedication, but over the years we've learned to be more productive without seeming to put in quite so much effort. We've learned through making mistakes and taking a different approach to what the conventional ways would be. Still learning every day and constantly researching old and new methods, we believe that our lives are greatly enriched, we are healthier and we couldn't imagine any other way of life.
Considered to be living The Good Life, people love to visit us on our small farm to learn about our simple living philosophy.

Why do we do it?
Our love of good food, concern for our health and respect for all animals. The further we got into living on the land the more aware we became that most of the standard practices of growing food were not satisfactory. We couldn't eat with a clear conscience.
Milk from sad cows, pasteurized and homogenized into white liquid. Meat from distressed, hormone and antibiotic pumped livestock. Vegetables and fruits grown and sprayed with chemicals. What to do? Grow our own!
Slowly we grew our knowledge and took one step at a time, becoming proficient in one skill before moving on to the next. The learning curves were steep. We fell over and got back up again. There has been some derision and criticism of our approach from a few, but that's life when you swim against the tide.
If we are not the "norm" then so be it. There is nothing "normal" about growth hormones fed to beef, anti-biotics and chemicals fed routinely to chickens, cruelty and disrespect for farmed animals, meals in a box, GM foods, strawberries and tomatoes in winter.
Thankfully the World is waking up to cleaner and more ethical food. We didn't know back then that Organics and Bio-dynamics would become the "new black". The tide is turning and our swimming is becoming easier.