My Posting Philosophy, Marinated Olives And Cheese, And The Snake Does The Unexpected

You may have noticed that I’m not posting as often and when I do it is often more than one topic.  The reason I don’t post as often is that I don’t have as much to write about since we don’t RV and they contain more topics because we don’t cook as many meals that are worthy of a full blog post.  Bev and I are both losing weight and to do that, we cook and eat more meagerly.  But since my blog is my journal and the home for most of our recipes, I want to keep doing it, at least for a while longer - I actually write some posts and don’t publish them to be sure I have the info.  I’ve been taking Zepbound to lose weight for three months (37 lbs so far) and after a recent doctor visit, I realized I was not getting all of the nutrition that I needed (especially protein) so I’ve opted to change things up a little and have my diet be more Mediterranean like (more beans, olives, fish), eating more meat protein, and adding a protein shake each day - not enough protein is why muscle mass is loss when taking the new weight loss drugs. 

Marinated Olives

I originally saw this post for Marinated olives and cheese on Facebook but it contained no actual recipe.  So I went on line and found a recipe at Flavorful Eats that looked about right then I adapted it as shown below – added some sausage per the Facebook pic.

Marinated Olives And Cheese – Adapted from Flavorful Eats

Ingredients:

4 tbsp. olive oil

1½ tbsp. red wine vinegar

2 tsp. minced garlic

¼ tsp. dried oregano

¼ tsp. red pepper flakes

½ tsp. dried basil

1 sprig fresh rosemary

pinch black pepper

4 oz medium black olives

4 oz medium pimento-stuffed green olives – See note

4 oz kalamata olives

½ cup diced red bell pepper – I didn’t have any

4 oz Fontina cheese, cubed

4 oz cocktail onions (needed to be used)

4 oz Genoa salami, cubed

Note - I only had Castelvetrano olives so I used them to avoid a store trip.

Instructions:

First, make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or mason jar, add the olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes, basil, rosemary, and pepper. Stir in a bowl or shake mason jar until combined and set aside.

To a large bowl, add the black olives, green olives, pepperoncini, red bell pepper, and cheese. Pour the vinaigrette over everything in the bowl and stir until everything is coated. Marinate in the fridge for 2-3 hours, stirring every now and then to make sure everything is well-coated – I left them on the counter top.

Our King Snake (Yellow Bellied I Think)

We’ve had King Snakes around our place for years but haven't seen any in a while and are glad to have them here eating mice, etc.  When the cleaning lady looked out the front door to see why the dogs were barking, there was one looking in the window and I told her they were welcome and thought little more about it.  Then the next day Bev went outside and asked if I had taken the birdhouse down from atop the porch roof supporting brick columns as it was laying on the swing then she saw the snake partially in the birdhouse.

The two bird houses have also been atop the columns for years and we enjoy listening to them sing just outside the door when it’s open in cooler weather.  As far as we know this has never happened but after research, I discovered that the snake has special scales and can easily climb right up the face of a brick column - I would never have dreamed they could go up the face of a vertical surface.  According to the web - “They are incredibly agile and can scale almost any rough, vertical surface.”  Later she got this pic when he had fully came out - not sure how much of him went inside the house.

I sure hate that he got to the birds but since we want both the snake and the birds, we’ll have to do something to prevent this in the future.  Between the hawk showing up at the feeders and the snake, it’s a challenge to keep our little feathered friends safe.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

5/28/25 event date