Olive Orange Tapenade

I returned to a fairly empty fridge from my Thanksgiving vacation - garlic, an onion, and some potatoes.
My farm share comes tomorrow - I think it will be crimini mushrooms, cranberries, acorn squash, and mixed potatoes, but I have not yet gotten an official announcement.  But I needed food for today.  (It just dawned on me now that I should also have thought about food for lunch tomorrow, but it's too late now - I'll have to scourge around the various lunch locales near the office.)

So I stopped at the grocery store for things not coming in my farm share that I might need and also could eat for dinner - eggs, soy milk, an orange (all good cranberry dishes require oranges)... and then I walked by the olive bar and remembered having a massive craving for tapenade over the weekend.  (I have been known to make it for Thanksgiving.)  So I got some pitted kalmatas and came right home.

I actually made hash browns and an egg over medium sprinkled with mild cheddar for dinner.  But I also made olive tapenade.  YUM.

I first made this out of a recipe in the back of VegNews, a vegan food magazine, but I wouldn't recognize it with all the changes and substitutions I've made over the years.  I do remember that it called for lemon juice.  But I only remember this because I have never once used lemon juice to make tapenade - I didn't have a lemon that first day, so I used an orange, and it was so delicious that I could never make myself try to follow the real recipe.

So I've made this a lot, and I don't use a recipe, but there are some things to think about.

Pointers:

• It's all about the olives.  It's true.  So, think about the things you're adding in as ways to extend the delicious olive flavors.  Things that will compliment.  Things that will extend the flavor.
• You may be tempted to put the ingredients in a blender or food processor instead of chopping them finely.  Please resist this temptation.  It never tastes as good - somehow the flavor gets ish.  And it will look gross.  And, sometimes, one of your pitted olives has a bit of pit, and it gets all ground up and nasty.

Necessary ingredients:

• Pitted kalmata olives that don't come from a metal can.  A jar if you must, but seriously, find yourself a grocery store with an olive bar.
• Orange zest, and then juice to flavor but not to drown.
• Oregano.  Fresh might be nice, I dunno, I've never tried.  We've got leaf, we've got ground, it's all delicious.

Optional but suggested ingredients:

• Other citrus juice, if you really want.  Grapefruit worked that time I tried.
• Capers!!!  Deliciousness!!!  But expensive.  Luckily the old roommate left a whole jar.  Yum.
• Onion.  Preferably red, preferably chopped.  I used to list this as "necessary" but it's not.  Today I used onion powder in a jar.  It was fine.
• Whatever you like with your olives.

That's all I've got.  I like olives.