Marinated Olives

It's nice to have olives on hand for quick entertaining. We make a lot  of appetizers in our house and olives are always part of the offering.  It's easy to buy olives in the store and then bring them home and make them extra special. I marinade them in a few ingredients and after a few days or even a week they are really wonderful.




Ingredients:
olives and juice
1 large bay leaf
fresh rosemary sprig
2 whole garlic cloves
Orange rind, or lemon
olive oil

Make sure you use a clean sterilized jar to store the olives in. 

Into the jar put the bay leaf, rosemary, garlic and the citrus rind.  Next fill the jar with olives.  Now you can use either the juice the olives came in or olive oil. Fill to the top of the jar to cover the olives. 

Allow to sit, refrigerated, for several days.  These will keep in the fridge for a few months.  I take out only what I am going to serve, then put the jar back in the frig until next time.  I remove only the olives and leave the other ingredients in the jar until the jar is empty.

There is another way to make olives special which is extra special.  You can put all these ingredients into a small saucepan and heat it just until hot, then put into a serving bowl, allow to cook slightly, and serve warm. They are really good served like that and you don't have to make them ahead of time.