Experience Nutrition: Beautiful Farm-to-Table Plant-Based Thanksgiving Tapenade Recipe by Melanie Albert

By Melanie Albert, Founder & CEO Experience Nutrition, Intuitive Cooking Expert, and Award-Winning Cookbook Author

This week I had the incredible opportunity to host a farm-to-table plant-based Thanksgiving cooking class at The Farm at South Mountain, a few minutes walk from my home. The recipes for the class, featured in the November 2018 issue of the Natural Awakenings Arizona magazine, are simple and delicious, and perfect for a plant-based holiday meal.

One of the recipes intuitively created during the cooking class is an amazing tapenade, loved by everyone at the class for it’s flavor, beauty, and simplicity. Many who attended the class will be shopping at our local farmers’ markets this week and will prepare this appetizer to serve at their Thanksgiving meals.

Hope you enjoy the recipe and have fun creatively “plating” the tapenade using your local farmers’ organic veggies. For inspiration, take a look at some plating ideas from the cooking class at The Farm. Have fun intuitively plating your tapenade for Thanksgiving and other get-to-gethers this season.

Thanks to Cassie Hepler, of ExploreWithCassie for the photos.

Inspiration from the Thanksgiving Farm-to-Table Cooking Class at The Farm

Love the creativity and colorful tapenades created at the cooking class…

Farm-to-Table Cooking Classes and Events at The Farm at South Mountain, Phoenix, Arizona

Tapenade…

Kalamata Olive Tapenade Recipe

Enjoy refreshing tapenade with local Arizona veggies. This rich appetizer is an update to the olive trays that our family enjoyed with holiday meals when I was a kid. When you make your tapenade, have fun experimenting with a variety of olives and mindfully plate with favorite veggies from your farmers’ market.

SIMPLE INGREDIENTS

2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, rough chopped
1 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and rough chopped
¼ cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup capers
¼ cup fresh parsley
¼ – 1/3 cup organic extra virgin olive oil

Extras for Plating

1 cucumber, sliced
9-10 dehydrated tomato slices
2-3 red or purple radishes, thinly sliced
2 green onions, sliced on the bias
2 Tbsp goji berries, re-hydrated in water for 10 minutes

SIMPLE STEPS

Gather your mise en place
Mince garlic
Rough chop the sun-dried tomatoes, soak in water to re-hydrate 5-10 minutes
In a food processor, pulse garlic and olives until fine, not paste-like
Remove the olive and garlic mixture from the food processor.
Place sun-dried tomatoes in food processor and process until fine.
Add capers and parsley and pulse a few times.
Place olive/garlic mixture and sun-dried tomatoes/capers/parsley mixture into a bowl and mix with a fork.
Add olive oil until you reach desired consistency.
Enjoy the tapenade on cucumbers with a few extra veggies from your local farmers.