Kalamata olives I'm familiar with. It's one of the few foods Sonia is allergic to that I'm not. And that's one of the reasons I chose this app for elevensies yesterday—so I wouldn't have to share with the beautiful wifey. Haha. You think that's mean? Wouldn't it have been much meaner to share them with her under the circumstances? She actually has a pretty severe reaction that involves swelling in her extremities and face.
But there were also Castlevania olives, er Castelvetrano rather, in the box. Neither of us recognized that ingredient. If there's some way to tell the Kalamata olives apart from the Castlevania ones, we didn't figure out how to do it. It all tasted pretty much the same to me: salty, earthy, slightly bitter.
The fried breadcrumb coating was nice and crispy but didn't add a ton of flavor. As far as the stuffing was concerned, cream cheese was fine, but I would have preferred mozzarella or possibly even something more exotic than that. There's blue cheese listed in the ingredients, but it's pretty low on the list. Both Sonia and I are sensitive to blue cheese, but I didn't feel it at all. It might have lent an extremely subtle moldy tang to the filling, but for the most part, it's just plain cream cheese in there.
Trader Joe's put out a similar product stuffed with chicken a few years back. Not sure if Sonia and I tried those at the time. If we did, they weren't very memorable, and apparently the Shelly family wasn't super enthused.
Before it was all said and done, Sonia did take her life into her own hands and tried a bite. She was much more positive about these olive bites than I was, but I think that's mainly because she can't have them. "People always want what they can't have" and all that.
These would go pretty fast at a fancy Christmas party if they were piping hot straight out of the oven and people were quickly grabbing just one or two. I don't recommend them as a mid-morning snack or a substitute for lunch—although I'm thinking most normies don't do weird stuff like that like I do—at least not with the same regularity.
Anyway, these aren't bad if you're into olives and cream cheese, but we probably won't purchase again.
Bottom line: 6 out of 10.
Mmm...moldy tang.
ReplyDeleteI would love these. Glad you mentioned the blue cheese is not a factor as whenever I see that ingredient I avoid.I guess your household is unlikely to purchase TJ's kalamata extra virgin olive oil. My favorite oil. Keep trying others and going back to it. So yummy and economical. And one of the few tested that was found to be real extra virgin. Sorry Sonia does not get to enjoy it. ☹️
She would totally use that if she could. Her favorite now is avocado oil.
DeleteI agree with your rating. I was SOOOO excited to try these. They were very disappointing. Being that I love green olive/cream cheese spread on a bagel I had higher hopes. :-(
ReplyDeleteThe olive, we thought, made the crumb coat a bit soggy. We found that the kalamata bites were slightly smaller than the castelvetrano. Those are a lovely, mild green variety and one of my faves. They had the blue, the kalamata did not. Definitely would not purchase again.
ReplyDeleteIf you cook these in an air fryer and eat them with a cold beer, they are fantastic.
ReplyDelete