Kalamata Olive Aioli

Once upon a time I lived in California and me and a bunch of friends would frequent the Nordstroms bistro and bask in the love of their fries and Kalamata Olive Aioli.

I could bathe in the stuff.  I bet it would be great for my skin….

I remember the first time I went, I thought it was grape yogurt, and my friend was RAVING about it.  I thought she was insane (because, admit it — it looks like purple yogurt).  But it’s oh so much better.

I’ve adapted the recipe from the Nordstrom’s cookbook (they roast the garlic, but I simply haven’t had the time to roast my garlic lately — I use the bottled stuff from the fridge {gasp — the horror}

So, here it is!

2 Cups of Hellman’s Mayo (seriously, use the good stuff, no lowfat sugary filled kind here)

Heaping tablespoon of bottled garlic (but I bet roasting it would make it THAT much better, I hope to do it one day — that recipe is here) — my heaping tablespoon is probably pretty close to 1/4 cup

1 Tablespoon of lemon juice (fresh is best, you can guess I used bottled)

1 cup of pitted kalmata olives (you can find them by the regular olives in any major grocery store)

A few fresh basil leaves if you’ve got ’em. 🙂

I did a few grinds of pepper too.

Anyway, we had it for dinner tonight, I got some pita bread from Costco and I just grilled some chicken and had green beans (we all dipped everything in the aioli).  It was easy peasy lemon squeezy (apparently squeezing lemons isn’t all that easy, so nevermind)

**Aioli is just a fancy name for flavored mayo.