Okay, so sometimes I gotta throw a little bonus out to my readers.  That’s right the 8 Days of Cabot is really the 8 Days of Cabot PLUS ONE!

I had way more fun playing with Cabot Creamery Collective cheese than I thought I would and came up with an extra cheese dish.  Here’s to the ninth dish:

Cheesy Olives

This dish came to me when I was writing an article for Big Blend Magazine.  I was working on an Italian spread for a basketball feast and I had a few left over olives.  I also had some left over Cabot Horseradish cheddar cheese and I got to thinking about a dish my wife and I used to love.

One of our first big romantic dates was catered by Target (no, really) because they had these fried cheese stuffed olives called oliveinos which were amazing.  They were basically a black olive stuffed with herbed cheese coated in batter and deep fried.  What’s not to love?

My first thought had been to replicate that dish, but use some leftover green olives I had until I realized they were unpitted olives.  (D’oh.)  So what I did was take the olives, dry them, and coat them in batter.  I deep fried them and then topped the olives with cheese while they were still warm.  By doing so, I got a lovely flavored melted cheese without needing to stuff the olive.  It was a win-win situation.

Making Cheesy Olives

You will need:

• 1 cup of olives, preferrably pitted
• 1 cup of All-Purpose flour
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt + more to sprinkle on the fried olives
• oil for frying
• 2 ounces Cabot Horseradish cheddar cheese, shredded

Remove the olives from the jar and put them on a double set of paper towels.  Pat the olives as dry as you can.  Let them rest.

Make the batter by mixing the flour, milk, egg, and 1 teaspoon of salt.  Mix well with a fork to ensure no lumps form.

Dip the olives in the batter and let them rest.

While the olives are resting, heat the oil to 350 degrees or medium high on the burner.  Deep fry the olives until the coating turns brown, about 30-60 seconds.

Remove to another paper towl or a cooling rack and sprinkle with salt and cheese.

Eat and enjoy!