Olives on the trail

[Donna C]

Last night I was using up leftovers for dinner and combined chicken, homemade marinara sauce and pasta.  But then I tossed in tapenade. Holy cow was that good.  So I got to thinking if I could bring olives on the trail with me, chop them up and add some olive oil and toss it into my pasta meals, it would be a great dinner.  So, would the olives keep and for how long?  Anyone ever dehydrate them?

Thanks!

[James Marco]

Yes, you can dehydrate them. But, they come rather oily and difficult to rehydrate You can pick these up in many Mediterranean specialty shops as dried black olives. They keep quite well and pick up more of an olive oil flavor. Often packed with paprika(Spanish) and red pepper(Sicilian), depending on the variety. We get these and eat them as condiments or candy with family meals. Rather high in calories, too.

 

 

 

 

 

[Gary Dunckel]

Packit Gourmet sells FD black olive slices, and they rehydrate pretty easily. I use them to make hummus on the trail. Add a couple drops of Tabasco, or maybe some Italian spices…tasty.

[Donna C]

Wow, that’s great to know.  It seems like these little gems have everything needed to replace what was burned up while backpacking.  Adding some FD chicken to it will just round it out.

[Jake J]

Star olives makes a small resealable foil pack which would be great to take on the trail:

http://starfinefoods.com/products/farmers-market-olive-pouches/#olives4

I’ve had the one linked above with the herbs and they were pretty tasty.

[Matthew / BPL]

I’m not crazy about olives so I have not tried them but I noticed small foil packs of olives at my local Cost Plus World Market. They were pretty small (2″ by 2″?) so they must have like six olives in them. They might be nice on an overnight trip.

[Roger Caffin]

Hot and spicy Kalamata olives … Yeah!

Cheers

[Valerie E]

+1 for the Packit Gourmet freeze dried black olives.  Of course they’re just “plebe” olives (nothing fancy, like those seasoned kalamatas), but I add them to all kinds of homemade freeze-dried dinners, usually along with an individual packet of hot sauce.  Expensive, but worth it.

[Gary Dunckel]

I’ve taken the small pouches of those Cost Plus/World Market olives on day hikes. They spice up a picnic quite well.

[Donna C]

I’m liking the spicy olives.  It would be easy enough to chop some up at home and package them up. I think I need to go out for a hike so I can eat these things!

[Rex Sanders]

Coincidence – just as this thread appeared, I was thinking about taking olives on the trail.

Tried the Cost Plus small packet of “Oloves” – just a few olives, kinda watery, and the flavor didn’t do much for me.

Found Sunfood – Black Botija Olives on Amazon. The flavor is better, more intense than the Cost Plus olives, and it’s pretty easy to eat a bunch at once. Needs repackaging, but I might take these on future trips.

I prefer intensely-flavored, salt-cured black olives over almost all other kinds.

YTBWV – your taste buds will vary.

— Rex

 

[Mark Cashmere]

+1 Oloves!  My wife picked some up for me a while back and I don’t know how much they cost but they were a very tasty option to have with me on the trail.

[Rex Sanders]

Cruising through Target today, found these:

Available in four flavors, one pre-sliced. These Kalamata olives were pretty tasty. Each cup holds 1.4 oz (40 grams) of olives with a few drops of liquid; the empty package weighs 0.3 oz (9 grams) on my scale. “Best by” date May 11, 2017. Also sold by Walmart, Amazon, and others.

— Rex

[Ken Thompson]

You can always package your own if you have a vacuum sealer. I take spicy carrots that way. Yum!

The carrots are pickled and the olives are brined. I wouldn’t worry much about the shelf life.

[Mary D]

I dry mine–any kind of olive packed in water seems to dehydrate fine. I generally go for Spanish cocktail olives and black olives, since they are easy to obtain and inexpensive. Whole olives are rather slow to dry (~12 hours) so I usually chop them up and dehydrate them on parchment (3-5 hours). They are great in all kinds of dishes and bigger chunks mixed with dried tomatoes makes a really nice snack food.

[Andrea C]

Hello.

Chiming in this thread, never considered to carry olives due to the high levels of salt/sodium when kept in brine. Not sure if one can easily find marinated ones, which would have little to no salt added?
Surely will add taste, but may lead to feel more thirsty either.
Where I come from, south of Italy, olives are usually done in brine so they’re not easy to carry nor will last long. Ideally, could be chopped and vacuum-packed.

[eric schultz]

I went backpacking last weekend and took vacuum sealed olives from Trader Joes.

They are great.  I know they are not lightweight, but they sure tasted good with the other              Hors d’oeuvres we had that consisted of salami  and cheese from TJs.

Thanks

Eric

[Jerry Adams]

But you only put a few olives in your meal so total salt added isn’t that much

And when you’re hiking, you sweat a lot so need some salt

[Ken Thompson]

Since they’re made in unrefrigerated barrels with brine why do you think they wouldn’t last?

[Jerry Adams]

Do you need to keep it in brine for it to stay good?

Even if you did, you need some salt when you’re hiking, so maybe that’s just part of the budget?

[Jonathon Self]

Like pickles, I don’t think that they wouldn’t last as long unless they are currently in the brine, and I’m unlikely to carry a jar of brine around with me, regardless of how tasty I think it is (I could drink olive brine. Mmmm…). And this is all assuming they’re in an actual brine. Sometimes they’re just in a brine-like liquid, and not a true brine.

If I were to carry olives, I’d get those little pouches. Unfortunately, they are a little bit expensive considering the weight of the olives inside of them, so, eh…

 

[James Marco]

Typically, I will sometimes bring dried black olives. These are dried (though they remain fairly soft) and spiced. Often, no additional oil is needed. But they are annoying to prepare for hiking, you need to remove the seed.

[Rex Sanders]

Found small packets of olives at Trader Joe’s today, 99 cents. Similar to the Cost Plus Oloves, i.e. not my taste, but you might like them.

Entire contents of package on a salad plate:

— Rex

 

[Kevin Robitaille]

I haven’t tried this recipe, but thought it might be useful way to prepare olives for the trail:

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/02/dried-olive-miso-rosemary-shake-condiment-vegan-parmesan-replacement-recipe.html

I tried dehydrating some miso last week, but it must have had too much oil in it because I was getting more of a leather than a dried paste. I ended up mixing it with malto and it absorbed the fat and I ended up with the powder consistency I wanted.

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