I thought I had already posted this but cannot now find it.

When we were down in the Clare Valley we found that the sides of a lot of the roads were covered in trees full of wild black olives.

We ended up picking half a bucket of them and I found an old fashioned recipe for brining them.  The process is quite lengthy and this method can take up to six months to remove the bitter taste.

They have been in brine since then and are now edible but still with a slight bitterness so are still in a new brine that I change every few weeks.

I did that again today and the last photo also taken today shows beautiful plump black olives after a rinse in fresh water.

The final process involves placing in jars with a brine and apple cider mix together with whatever herbs take your fancy.

I have already bought three large bottles to put them in and really looking forward to the end product.

Now wishing we picked more.

My wife (Toni) and I grow some olives in the orchard we have on the back of our block.

I am not a fan of brined olives but I cannot live without olive oil - yes I think I am strange too.

We have found a different way to prepare eating olives.  That is to salt dry them. Probably not a method terribly suitable for a mobile lifestyle...

The simplified method is to get a large muslin or similar bag, and put in the olives, a few herbs and a heap of salt. Hang the bag up over a bucket. The salt will extract a bunch of moisture (thus the bucket). Every so often agitate the bag and add a bit more salt.

A couple of weeks later they'll be ready.

I actually like these olives.  Still most of our olives go for processing.

Colin, a few years back Maggie and I met a couple of grey nomads who had been working a season on a farm where they did the dried olives.  Prior to that had never heard of them and even today have never seen any for sale anywhere.  Would be interested to taste them.

Did you know that most commercially brined olives are done in lye or caustic soda as it is a quick way to remove the bitterness.

Robert, this method I am using doesn’t have the olives cracked. Hence the long time to do it.  Cracking or cutting them can reduce the process significantly apparently.  We wanted the olives to be whole.

I found the Kalamatta olives at Aldi quite good.
Best part is not waiting 6 months.
Spag Bol goes next level with black olives in the sauce.

This talk is making me salivate.

Well done Derek cheers Robert