Feta Olive Pesto Spread

We're about to embark on that time of year when snowflakes fall on nose and eyelashes, bells jingle, and family and friends come home for the holidays! All of this means more parties, get togethers and nights filled with the angst of trying to decide what to feed all of these people!

This spreadable feta-olive pesto spread is perfect - if you take some shortcuts, it's super easy and fast to put together and if you take the long way it's still not that hard. It will definitely impress your guests if you serve it like we did - in individual serving cups (sake cups) with little bread sticks!

I use Macedonian feta - it is soft, creamy and mild tasting.When I'm not interested in making it from scratch, I head to my local Greek grocery store and buy some of their delicious olive pesto. I only need about 2 tablespoons of olive pesto per cup of feta. I throw the pesto and feta in a food processor and pulse until it comes together. If you don't like olives you could add traditional pesto instead. A mild goat cheese would work too!

If you want to make it from scratch, you can make the pesto ahead of time. It's also good on pasta!

Olive Pesto

Ingredients

1 tbsp sundried tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tbsp pine nuts, toasted
1/2 c kalamata olives, no pits

Instructions

1. Add tomatoes, cheese, garlic and pine nuts to food processor. Pulse until combined but chunky.
2. Add olives and olive oil.
3. Pulse until combined. You want it to have texture - that is, not too smooth.

Refrigerate.

Feta-olive pesto spread

Ingredients

1 c Macedonian feta
2 tbsp olive pesto

Instructions

Combine and pulse feta and pesto until combined.

Olive oil banana bread with molasses

This banana bread came about one day when I had a bunch of overripe, fruit fly calling bananas on my kitchen counter but no room temperature butter. I know I could have zapped the cold butter in the microwave but I always seem to melt it too much and make a mess. And being the impatient baker I am, I did not want to wait to let it warm up naturally. Instead, I used a light tasting extra virgin olive oil.

In case you didn’t know, you don’t substitute olive oil and butter amounts tbsp by tbsp. In this case, the original recipe calls for ¼ cup of butter but I only needed 3 tbsp of oil (healthier already!). I also didn’t cream the oil and sugars as I would have if I had used butter since the oil is in a liquid state.

Olive oil works in many baked goods but especially well here with the fruity bananas and deep tasting molasses and oats. It also adds a great depth of flavour that goes well with the cinnamon.

This banana bread is amazing toasted especially with … a little pat of butter! LOL…so much for “health” improvements. Oh well, I’m sure you’ll love it anyway you eat it! 

Ingredients

1 c white flour
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c large flake oats
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 c sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 c molasses
2 large eggs
1 c mashed bananas
1/3 c low fat sour cream
1 tsp vanilla

What to do

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Whisk, in a large bowl, flours, oats, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and sugar.
3. In another bowl, whisk together eggs, molasses, olive oil, bananas, sour cream and vanilla.
4. Add wet to dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
5. Place batter into a 8 x 4 pan that has been coated in non-stick spray.
6. Bake for about an hour or until toothpick comes out clean.
7. Let cool for 15 minutes and then remove from pan to cool completely.