CategoriesMain Dish Sides
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Tuscan Bean Bake

As the weather cools, one pot meals are the way to go because you can easily just add all the ingredients together at once and just let it cook. This Tuscan Bean Bake recipe is just one of those dishes. It can be made as a side dish or as the main meal with a nice warm loaf of crusty bread. This recipe also calls for a dutch oven, but if you don’t have one, a large baking dish is fine too. You’ll just need to use aluminum foil to cover the beans. I believe that dutch ovens make the food taste better so it’s well worth the investment. The cheese is entirely optional and bread crumbs mixed with olive oil may be substituted as a topping.

What you’ll need: 

1 pound bag of cannellini beans

3 leeks

5 cloves of garlic

3 tablespoons So Olive Tuscan Herb Extra Virgin Olive Oil

2 tablespoons thyme, dried

1 tablespoon oregano, dried

4 cups vegetable broth

Sea salt to taste

1 cup mozzarella, shredded (optional)

1/4 cup parmesan (optional)

Here’s how:

Soak beans for at least 4 hours or overnight in a large bowl of cold water. After beans have soaked, drain the water.

Preheat oven to 225°F. Trim the the dark green tops of the leeks and discard.  Cut leeks in half and rinse out any dirt between the white layers of the leeks. Then thinly slice the leeks. Mince the garlic. I use a garlic press. In a dutch oven, sauté the leeks and garlic until leeks are softened. Then add the soaked beans, thyme, oregano, vegetable broth, and sea salt. Place lid on dutch oven and place on third lower rack of oven. Bake for 3.5 hours. In between check on the beans to see how much water has absorbed. Add a 1/2 cup of water if needed. Once the beans have cooked through and water has absorbed take beans out of the oven.

In the mean time, increase the oven temperature to 450°F. Add the cheese, then place the dutch oven without the lid back into the oven for about 15 minutes until cheese is slightly brown. Then take it out of the oven. It’s ready to eat. Goes great with a slice of crusty bread and a garden salad.

CategoriesGuides
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How to Taste Extra Virgin Olive Oil Like A Pro

Olives are stone fruits and just like fresh squeezed juice, olive oil is the juice of an olive. As there are hundreds of variety of cultivated olives, each produces its own varietal of olive oil with its own unique flavor characteristics. Not only that, but soil conditions, weather, and how the olives are processed impacts how the olive oil will taste.

Professional tasters look for three main characteristics in olive oil: fruitiness, bitterness, and pungency. Fruitiness is the olive oil’s aroma or smell. Bitterness is the taste that should appear on the back of the tongue, and pungency is the stinging sensation in your throat after the oil has been swallowed. Note that all three characteristics must be present. If one is missing, the olive oil is defective.

So how does one find those main characteristics and eventually choose a favorite varietal?

This step-by-step guide will help you in discovering your favorite varietal olive oil.

1. Start with a mild olive oil. Olive oil usually comes in three flavor intensities; mild, medium, and robust. After you have gone through the steps of tasting a mild one, work your way to medium intensity and then to the robust olive oils. Sip some water in between each tasting.

2. Pour 1 – 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a small cup.

3. Warm the olive oil in your hands. Nest the cup into the palm of one hand and cover the top with your other hand. Gently twist the cup in your hand for about 20 seconds to warm the oil. This releases the aroma in the oil.

4. Make a note of the nose (Fruitiness). Raise cup to your nose and tuck nose into the cup, then take a deep whiff of the oil. This is the first insight that professional tasters assess when tasting olive oil. The first fragrant notes are clues to its flavor. Is it heavily fragrant? Can you identify the characteristics? Is it fruity or is it grassy? Is there something more subtle? Good quality olive oil should always have a fruity or green, herbaceous smell such as fresh cut grass.

5. Taste the oil (Bitterness). Draw a long, slurping sip while curling your tongue upward, taking a fair amount of air into your mouth along with that first sip in order to aerate the olive oil. This is called strippagio. Roll the oil across your tongue and all the way to the back of your mouth, allowing tongue to identify as many aspects of the flavor as possible. Remember that bitterness should be present.

6. Swallow the oil (Pungency). By now your tongue and your nose have all the information they need to tell you how the olive oil tastes. Is it fruity? Peppery? Pungent? Bitter? What did you like the most? Note the flavor characteristics and any lingering sensations of pungency in the throat. These distinctions will point you toward your favorites and rule out other oils.

When you know how to taste and identify the flavors of an extra virgin olive oil, you can start to narrow your choices down to the varietals you like, and you’re on your way to finding a favorite.

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how-to-taste-extra-virgin-olive-oil

CategoriesSpreads
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Balsamic Apple Butter

It’s apple season and that means it’s a good time to make apple butter. This apple butter recipe is great to make over the weekend since it requires about 8 hours in a slow cooker. I like to start the process early Sunday morning and just let it be, so that way I can catch-up on whatever tasks that I didn’t get to during the week. Three apple varieties are in this apple butter: Gala, Granny Smith, and Honeycrisp, but any apple variety may used. The cinnamon pear balsamic vinegar gives it a nice, subtle cinnamon balsamic flavor without it tasting like vinegar. You may also substitute any type of balsamic.

What you’ll need:

6 pounds of apples (I used Gala, Granny Smith, and Honeycrisp)

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup So Olive Cinnamon Pear Balsamic Vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

Here’s how:

Peel and core the apples. Cut the apples in medium sized cubes, and then toss them in a slow cooker. In a bowl, whisk balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. Then pour the mixture over the apples in the slow cooker and mix. Place lid on the slow cooker and set it on low. In between, check on the apples and stir it a bit, allowing it to cook for about 8 hours or until apples are softened. After the apples are soft, grab an immersion blender, and blend the apples until smooth. If needed, cook for another half an hour. Then turn the slow cooker off and allow the apple butter to cool. Once cooled, put it in a container to freeze or refrigerate it to be consumed within a week. Enjoy with a warm buttery biscuit.