A little while ago I was invited by Moms Meet to an online webinar with Flavor your Life -a campaign that is trying to education North American consumers about authentic European extra virgin olive oil. And we use so much olive oil in this house that this was a very fitting webinar for me. I am also very intrigued by European olive oil because we visited a place where olive oil is made while on a cooking tour with our kids in Italy a few years ago. During the Flavor Your Life webinar I learned about how olive oil is made and I also watched a risotto cooking demonstration and then I was sent some Le Stagioni D’Italia olive oil Italian Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Arborio rice to try to make some on my own at home for this sponsored post.
What I learned about extra virgin olive oil from Flavor Your Life
Just like I’m starting to learn about wine, I’ve been learning a lot about olive oil lately too and it’s neat to think about how olive oil goes from farm to table. Extra Virgin Olive Oil is made without heat or chemicals and it has an acidity of below 0.8%. It also needs to have a certain signature fruity taste and balance in order to receive its Extra Virgin rating. You can use it for both cooking and because it has a smoke point of about 400 degrees. (And there is an olive oil cake that I’ve been wanting to try making and I think I’ll be able to use this olive oil to make it too.)
During the webinar we learned from Alissa Mattei, an olive oil expert about how olive oil starts from olives on trees in an olive field in Italy and then goes on to being pressed into Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I couldn’t believe that some olive trees are over a thousand years old.
And then we watched a chef make risotto which is a dish I really love to see on menus when we go out to eat. It is such an easy thing to make, and I really should make it more often. When we made it at home, I just made the recipe from the box but added a bit of saffron and frozen peas and used the olive oil in place of the butter. A similar recipe would be this one that has lemon and garlic in it or this saffron one. I like to google recipes based on ingredients that we have on hand and when we made this one I hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet so it was nice to be able to make a simple meal like this with fairly few ingredients and have it turn out.
We have since used the olive oil we were sent to make sauce for homemade pasta and for oven baked toasts to go with a marscapone cheese and honey spread with soup and in a few salads too.
Do you use a lot of extra virgin olive oil in your cooking too and have you ever wondered where your olive oil comes from?
(PS, I received the olive oil and risotto for free from Moms Meet to use and post my honest opinions. Compensation for this post was provided and this page may contain affiliate links)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)