My friend Chris Kerston, a farmer on Chaffin Family Orchards in Chico, California, has an olive orchard and makes my favorite olive oil..post on that coming later.  Currently, he is shipping raw green barouni olives that are perfect for home curing.  They travel well and I was told that they are forgiving during the curing process.

I am in the middle of really trying to learn everything I can about all of my foods and how they are made.  I have been making my own yogurt, cheeses, fermented vegetables and fermented drinks…so why not try fermenting my own olives.

The shipment came yesterday .  I had read through numerous ways to home cure olives and I knew that I wanted to water cure them.  I knew that I didn’t want to use lye..which is how most store bought olives are cured, and water curing looked to be the easiest.   I bought a large container (see picture) in preparation for the olives to come.  This has been sitting in my mud room for a few weeks awaiting my olives shipment and no one has asked what it was for.

First step….wash, get rid of leaves and stems, and any marred or unusable olives.  Next, hit each one softly with a mallet or a rolling pin.  I used a mallet and I hope that I didn’t bruise them too harshly.  The rolling pin was too unsteady for me and the olives went flying across the room.

After each one was cracked, I put it in the bucket.   When it was all finished, I filled the bucket with filtered water, and I will change the water twice a day for one month.

One month passed.  I put the olives into different size mason jars.  In each jar I put:

Brine (I dissolved a quarter cup  Celtic Sea Salt four cups water)

Quarter cup raw vinegar

One bay leaf

Some cardamon

Then, I mixed it up a little bit:

Some I added herbs de provence

Some lemon and garlic

I made two Morrocon Spice olives from Jenny McGruther Nourished Kitchen

Some I put lemons on the top to keep the olives down, and some I put olive oil on the top to keep the olives down.  Of course, I used Chaffin Family Orchards olive oil.

It has been one day since I jarred them and they already are tasting better.  I am going to keep them in the jars for two weeks and then put them in the fridge and start using them.

I loved this project and so I ordered more raw olives from Chaffin Family Orchards yesterday as soon as I got their email that they were ready for shipping.  I also ordered some mandarins from them.  They make great Christmas gifts and snacks for your family!