How to add flavor to your food without the Hassle!

I was walking around the mall the other day and I alway like to stop by this Olive Oil and vinegar place called 41 Olive.  They have a nice array of different vinegars and flavored olive oils to choose from.  And best of all, they have a bunch of bread that you can use to dip in whatever oil or vinegar you like to taste.

So they had and interesting taste offering POPCORN!!! It was a regular popped popcorn with with amazing butter flavor.  I thought that they had put butter on the popcorn, but come to find, they now have a butter flavored olive oil that’s all natural and ORGANIC!!!!  Now, I don’t own a microwave because I just don’t like them, so I make my popcorn the old fashioned way, in a big pot!  And no matter how much butter I add, I never get that nice butter flavor, and I would hate to use those artificially flavored seasonings to put on the popcorn.  So when I tasted the popcorn at 41 Olive I was so excited to actually taste the butter flavor.

Another bottle I picked up was the wild mushroom and sage infused olive oil.  I love mushrooms and I love sage, so how could I possibly go wrong with that. I actually used it today on a quick recipe.  I boiled some plain bowtie paste, I preheated another pan and added a few tablespoons of the flavored olive oil and some sliced onions and sliced mushrooms, and sauteed them for about 4 minutes.  I added the pasta to the saute pan, a little bit of salt, a few tablespoons of half and half or heavy cream, and finally some black pepper.  The flavor was fantastic! You could actually smell and taste the mushrooms and sage.  Another nice touch to this dish would e to add some toasted pine nuts.  This dish took 5 minutes to make and it was full of flavor because of the amazing olive oil.

So here’s a tip, the next time you want to add quick simple flavor to a dish, try using a flavored olive oil.  Oh and the different vinegars are great to salads or vegetables.  These oils and vinegars also make great gifts, they’re my go to place when I don’t know what to buy someone.