More Olives, Please!

In a continuation, it appears, of a post I did a while ago about why olive oil is good for your health, here is why olives are as well. The University of Granada and the University of Barcelona have teamed up to discover that a certain compound in olive skins, maslinic acid, actually significantly contributed to death of cells and inhibition of new cell growth in colon cancer. This acid, while found in many other medicinal plants, is in concentrations of up to 80% in olives.

According to another study, olives are also being considered in HIV treatments. The maslinic acid is also good, it appears, at inhibiting receptors in the virus that allow it to spread throughout the body. This study was also done by the University of Granada.

You can find the source articles here and here.

Olives are quite the wonder-fruit. This is quite exciting for those of you, like myself, who absolutely love olives of all types. Nothing like a good kalamata to go with your hummus!

Looking for more ways to use olives? A very easy way I like is simple, too. Make tapenade!

Easy Tapenade Recipe:

all kinds of pitted olives (about 8 ounces)
olive oil (eyeball it, I guess about 1-2 tbsp)
anchiovies or anchiovy paste (I use about a teaspoon of paste)
garlic (however much you like)
handfull of capers
juice of one lemon
some basil

Now you blend it all. Easy and so yum! What a great way to get your olive intake and this post was about science and food!

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Midnight snacking....

Since my digital camera is currently indisposed, you are gonna have to trust me on this. I grow a lot of herbs and things and one of the plants we can't keep up with is the mint. I love my mint, but it is getting out of hand. Instead of making a little tzatziki, WE MADE A LOT! A ridiculous amount. That is fine with me though as not only is it great on my veggie burger (no, I am NOT vegetarian, I just love me a good veggie burger) but apparently also great on an English muffin at 3 in the morning with really good capocollo (really good cured ham stuff) and cheese. Here is the closest thing to a recipe I could come up with: (caution, it makes a ridiculous amount)

Tzatziki Yum:

32 oz plain yogurt (try to use up at least 10 ounces for something else... we made banana smoothies)
2 Cucumbers
As much fresh mint as you can stand (we used a Nick sized handful of leaves)
Ditto for garlic (a LOT in ours, we are garlic-philes)
Lemons (if using Greek yogurt, use 2... if regular yogurt, 1 will do, don't want it too runny)
salt and pepper also to taste....

This is why I am bad with recipes. I end up doctoring everything anyway... On to directions...

We grated the cucumber, but using a mandolin to get thin slices would be nice. We don't have one of those. We mixed that into the yogurt. Then we chopped up like 5 cloves of garlic (unless you love garlic, I recommend 1 clove). You WILL smell like garlic for the rest of the day if you use this much! We also chopped the mint using a style with a fancy name I can't remember. Wait, it was a chiffonade. Sounds important. We mixed this in also. Then we squeezed as much lemon in there as we could. Salt and pepper to our liking and Voila! Yummy tzatziki! We added a bit of cumin after, but I couldn't taste the difference. Nick swears there was one.

This will really fill up the container, even if you have already used about a third of the yogurt, but you can use it on any sandwich/buger/thing. We made lemon chicken wrapped in paratha with tzatziki and lebanesse hummus and it was yum. This was a very mixed culture dish. Also great for dipping veggies into. This keeps for a bit.

Enjoy.

And really, about the garlic... be careful! Once it sits over night, it really takes on the flavors of all that is in there.

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