Black Olive Bits: trashy and kinda cool

Black Olive Bits--kind of like shriveled up croutons

**edit...I"m realizing I'm pretty wordy. I like rambling. Sorry. Enjoy.**

Canned black olives are kind of crummy but also a classic. You can put them on your fingers, they taste like a tin can, and they are good on pizza. They remind me of the salad bar at Elby’s. They’re cheap and good in pasta salad so I have them around. I wanted something briny and salty the other day so I cracked a can and was both pleased and disappointed. I could eat a couple but then I felt a little barfy but I did keep eating them, truth be told. I needed to do something with them though. Here's what I did. It took quite a while and I walked away from it a lot which only adds to my enjoyment of a recipe. That's why I don't bake much...it's too exacting and fussy. These are fishy sort of... but better. 

I used maybe 10-15 olives and they really shrivel up (tee hee) and so they don't make very many. 

1. I preheated a small cast iron skillet with a little olive oil. Next time I might not use oil. It was pretty low heat.

2. The key for this recipe is to have the heat low and long. 

3. Cut the olives into the little rings you see on pizzas. 

4. Once the pan is preheated, put them in. They should be a little sizzley. 

5. I wanted them to be kinda crunchy. The idea is that they are for putting on salad or maybe a sandwich or maybe as a snacky bit. So...what to use? 

6. Add poppy seeds! I put maybe a tablespoon in first. Then I decided I needed more. Every time I walked by, I added some. I don't know how much. I was dumping out of a shaker. Maybe it added up to a 1/4 cup? Give or take. You need to consider maybe how much you like poppy seeds and more means you have a higher likelihood of getting them in your teeth. So, yeah, watch for that. Make sure the person you're dating is the kind that will tell you or you'll feel like a douche when you go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. 

7. Stir them around occasionally. I also added them in stages so some of them were really shriveled at the end and quite crispy and some were still a little soft. 

8. Add onion powder. I know it can be a kind of gross spice but in this case it adds a kick and flavoring that masks part of the tinny trashiness of the black olives and brings out the briny part. I added maybe 1-2 teaspoons total. 

9. You have to keep tasting these as you go. The poppy seeds should start to really get dark and stick to the olives. 

10. One of the great things about these is that they are kind of crunchy and salty and even nutty but there is a briny backend in the flavor (backend..hahaha). The onion powder isn't very strong and I might use more next time or maybe cayenne or garlic powder (though man does that give you gas...or just me?). I wouldn't go too fancy because then they will just be spice flavored bits that would either mask or clash with the briny part of the olive. Mediterranean spices might be good. I wouldn't waste good olives on  this. Really, those are too good alone.

VOILA