We bought a bottle of martini olives   so we could celebrate the coming of 2010 in the comfort and safety of our home. I make a decent gin martini, according to the husband. However, he's still waiting for that Happy New Year martini. This is the second bottle of olives that we bought in the past six months with good intentions of drinking ourselves silly. Who wouldn't with such cute martini glasses from which to sip. (Ha! No dangling prepositions by which to chide me, Husband.)  So, what are we doing with the martini olives? Mostly, I use it as an ingredient in what's-in-the-fridge concoctions. Because they're salty, I usually use one or two. Today the olives became part of a steak marinade. Here's what I did: First, I prepared and put these ingredients in my marinating bowl: 1 tablespoon red onion, diced 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 martini olive, minced 3 branches of Italian parsley, roughly chopped Next, I added these ingredients (Note: These are all "about&qu

12:59 p.m. Drats ! Lunch time! I meant to start making lunch half-an-hour ago. 1 p.m. Race down the stairs, into the garage, and pull out a bag of frozen organic tomatoes from the freezer. Rinse the tomatoes, then thaw them in the microwave, on high, for 8 minutes. Next, wash and thinly slice 3 stalks of celery. Dice 1 white onion. Sauté ingredients until soft in a combination of olive oil and not-butter. 1:07 p.m. Run upstairs to fetch camera. Take picture of tomatoes in microwave. 1:09 p.m. Dump tomatoes into pot. Stir. Take a photo. Cover pot. 1:11 p.m. Finish cleaning and chopping half a bulb of garlic (10 large cloves in this case). Add to pot. With back of spoon, smash down tomatoes. Add in several mean shakes of black pepper straight from tin and 2 healthy pinches (probably 1 heaping tsp. each) of dried basil. When it comes to spices and herbs, I'm not subtle. Because the hubby must restrict his salt intake, I rarely add salt to the stuff I make. 1:14 p.m.: Carefully pluck