Olive Tapenade, and a Let It Snow Challenge!

Shares 12

This weekend my Moms’ Fellowship Group from church is getting together for our annual Christmas party. I’m so looking forward to it—our group has grown from about 10 moms when I first joined (when David was only 3 months old) to 40+ moms now! I can’t even count how many kids there are among us! We get together at church every week, and the moms have time together while the kiddos are cared for in our church nursery. It is one of my favorite parts of every week. Saturday night we’re getting together without the kids for a little grown up fun! No diapers, no sippy cups, and no interruptions!

In my 2 years’ experience as a vegan I’ve learned to go prepared to a party, and to always bring an item that I would be happy to eat for the entire night. Also, assume someone else will be bringing hummus—there is always hummus, so bring something else and you’ll have at least 2 choices! Lately though, I have a few friends in the group who are gluten free, dairy free, or both, and we stick together. We had brunch this past week and we all brought dishes we could all eat—we call ourselves the restricted eating moms!

Anyway, I’m going to bring Olive Tapenade on Saturday night. I could eat olives every day I think. So could David! When I was a kid I used to love putting those big black pearl olives on my fingers—do all kids do that? Now I prefer kalamata or those yummy green ones—Castellanos I think! The best part about the tapenade is that it literally takes 5 minutes to put together. A few weeks ago I made it and we tossed it with some pasta in lieu of a red sauce. This weekend I’ll be serving it on sliced baguettes, rubbed with garlic. Yum!

Speaking of things to bring to the party—I’m also going to be bringing samples of all of my homemade candies from my ebook Let It Snow. I can’t wait to share them all with my friends. Vegan, gluten free, and decadent—6 candy recipes and 1 art print in an instant download! I’d also like to share these recipes with all of you so I’m starting a 12 Days of Christmas challenge! Friday, the 13^th, marks 12 days until Christmas (can you believe it?). For each day of the challenge I will make a donation for each ebook purchased. On Friday I will start with $1.20 for every book sold, $1.10 the next day, working down to 10 cents on December 24! I

’ll be splitting the donation between two of my favorite charities. The first is Mary’s Place, a day shelter for homeless women and children in Seattle. I had the privilege of volunteering there with some of my other mom friends and our kiddos last year. The second is World Vision, a third world relief and development company doing relief work in over 90 countries world wide, that my family has supported for over 30 years. I can’t do either organization justice in this short blog post, so pop over to their websites to learn more about them. And then head over to Etsy to buy the book—it’s just $1.99!

As a bonus, I am teaming up with my childhood friend Melysa from the adorable paper shop Ink Meets Paper. She’ll be binding one paper copy of this book and we will be doing a drawing for it for everyone who has purchased an ebook between December 1^st and 24^th! What are you waiting for?

Oh yes, the tapenade recipe. Here you go, and then head right over to Etsy to get your book, and share with those in need, all with a single click!

Olive Tapenade
½ c kalmata olives
½ c green olives (with pimento)
1 T capers
¼ c jarred artichokes
¼ c sun dried tomatoes
¼ c parsley, plus more for garnish
1 clove of garlic
zest of one lemon (optional—I like the brightness of the lemon, my husband didn’t care so much for it, so I’ll leave it up to you!)
olive oil as needed if you want to thin it out, or lemon juice (no more than 1 T of lemon juice!)

baguette and garlic clove

1 lb pasta
2 T olive oil
1 c white beans (optional)

Place all ingredients from kalmatas through lemon zest in the food processor. Quickly pulse it to break it down, but do now puree it. You want it to be spreadable but chunky. Set aside.

If using baguette, slice into ¼ to ½ inch slices on the diagonal and toast under a broiler. Remove once they are golden brown. Slice the tip off of a clove of garlic and rub the clove over each piece of toast. Top with olive tapenade and serve. Sprinkle with parsley if desired.

If using pasta, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. Toss with 1-2 T of olive oil, white beans, and tapenade (you may not need all of it). Garnish with parsley and serve.