Follow this step by step guide to make your own Dried Black Olives.

If you’re lucky like me and have olive trees, then you’ll be excited at this time of year (If you live in the south hemisphere) when the trees bear fruit and are ready for picking. Now you can make your own dried black olives.

Here’s what you do:

1. Pick black olives by hand, leave the green
2. Remove leaves and stems
3. Wash in cold water and drain
4. Bring to the boil a large pot of salted water and add the black olives
5. Turn off and let them soak for 15 minutes
6. Rinse and drain
7. Dry using paper towels or just in a basket
8. Arrange the olives onto a flat baking tray with baking paper. The olives should be in a single layer – add salt
9. Place into the Oven at 100 deg celcius – leave for a few hours or until you can see that they’ve completely shrivelled up and dry.
10. Keep in a jar and eat.

To Marinate the Dried Black Olives

1. Dry the black olives as above instructions
2. Add ¼ – ½ jar of cold pressed virgin olive oil
3. Add 1 clove of garlic sliced thinly
4. Add one fresh chilli sliced thinly
5. Add a few slices of fresh orange peel
6. Add 1 bay leaf
7. Add two pinches of sea salt
8. Add the olives so that they are submerged all the way to the top.
9. Shake the bottle to mix up all the ingredients
10. Leave in the pantry

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