Caprese Olive Salad

Dude. You HAVE to try caprese olive salad.

Why is caprese olive salad so darn good?

The olive train is seriously out of control around here.  Seriously, they are coming out of my ears.

And I LOVE it.  This ish, you guys.  It has olives of all shapes and sizes, and as if that wasn't enough, I had to put even more in there with some green olive pesto.  

It's beautiful.  It's dynamite.  It's.... olives.  Briney, salty, tender olive goodness.

So I'm totally sorry if you are not an olive lover, like me, because you probably didn't even get to this part of my blog, because you took one look at this plate of olives and high-tailed it outta here.

And that's okay.  But for those of you who are sticking around... you are my new best friends.

Just kidding, I love you all.  But maybe I love the olive lovers just a tad bit more.  Ok, I'm totally kidding. Moving on....

So this dish has black, green and kalamata olives {which are your favorite?}.  I've been a green olive lover since I was a small child, and still totally am, but I am also bonkers for kalamata olives.

Especially because my love for Greek food is over-the-moon, so I seem to always buy a jar of {pitted} kalamatas when I'm at the supermarket.  But, just to hold true to my green olive roots, I used them in this GREEN OLIVE PESTO.  

You guys, this is the best pesto up in here.  It has a load of marinated green olives, a giant bushel of fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley, a lil garlic, a handful of nuts, a smattering of Parmesan and freshly cracked black pepper.  

Give it a whirl in the food processor, and you have straight-up flavor in the house.

I dare you to not eat it all with a spoon.

How to make this salad

And just one more note about olives -- before I lose even my most devoted olive blog-readers -- I am so excited about Pearls brand specialty olives because they have a jar of mixed Greek olives, which includes all 3 of the olives I used in this salad {black, green and kalamata} in the most delicious marinade.  

They are SO good.  So that's what I recommend using, if you can find them in your supermarket.  

Because honestly, black olives are typically the least flavorful olives, but this marinade brings them to life, folks.  

But even if you can't find this brand, a mixture of your favorite olives will do just fine.

Before I let you all go today, I want to also spend some time talking about the tomatoes in this caprese salad.  DO YOU SEE THEM?  They are beauts.  Through and through.

 These are the little guys I got at the Farmer's Market I was telling you about in the Blueberry Upside-Down Breakfast Cake blog, last week.  I have no idea what exactly they are, but I just know that they are incredibly juicy and sweet heirloom varieties.  

So I had to have them, and I had to put them in this Caprese Olive Salad.  Again, whatever your fave tomato is, tho, just put them in here {cherries, grapes, beefsteak, whatevs}.

So this is what we have -- Amazing Olives, Amazing Olive Pesto and Amazing Juicy Heirloom Tomatoes.

And THEN, because it's caprese, we HAVE to have fresh mozzarella cheese {or burrata} with some olive oil and balsamic to bring it all home.  Amiright?

Amiright?!?!?!?!

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