Rancho Azul y Oro ~ Surviving the Dream

The California Olive Oil Council announced the winners of its 2017 Olive Oil Competition ( 2017 COOC Competition Winners ).  We were thrilled to be among the producers who were awarded a silver medal for our 2017 Estate Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Since this is the governing professional organization for olive oil producers in California, they only accept entries that are EVOO, which eliminates any flavored oils.  Once an oil is either co-milled with or infused with anything, it is no longer EVOO. We have entered our EVOO and our flavored oils in additional competitions but were pleased to start off 2017 with this announcement. Congratulations to all of the winners!

Banana-Dark Chocolate Olive-Oil Muffins We were preparing for a tasting of our olive oil today, and as we always do, we create food with our olive oil using recipes that either we create or that we believe will pair well with our oils.  The goal?  To demonstrate how EVOO can be integrated into everyone's daily meals without too much difficulty. On the whole, we were pleased with these muffins, although I will be making a few tweaks in the future, at which time, we'll print up recipe cards, which we always provide with our oils. Here is a picture of the finished product: Banana-Dark Chocolate Olive Oil Muffins Do you have a favorite muffin recipe that you'd like us to try to convert using EVOO?  Let us know!