Rosemary Infused Olive Oil
Making your own Infused Olive Oils is not only an amazing gift (to yourself or others), but it also makes your house smell absolutely amazing! These Olive Oils are quite impressive looking. Homemade gifts show people that you care, and these oils are really are not that difficult at all. They take a little bit of time and attention to detail – but with just a little bit of effort, you can quite easily have impressive looking gifts!
These Rosemary Infused Olive Oils you see here are actually our Wedding Favors! In addition to just having a beautiful bottle of homemade infused Olive Oil to bring home, our guests will also be able to see what table they will be sitting, since the bottles are doubling as favors and seating cards! These cards by the way, are just paint chips folded in half, glued so you can’t see the company info and then trimmed to get rid of the writing – free beautiful thick colored paper!!
There are many tutorials around the web about how to make these oils – and it is really not difficult BUT you must make sure that whatever flavor you are infusing into your olive oil is clean and dry! Morgan over at Pepper Design Blog has one of the best and most informative (and photogenic) posts on this topic, please check out her site!
STEPS TO MAKE YOUR OWN INFUSED OLIVE OIL…
1. Clean/Fresh Herbs AND Clean Bottles: Something important to remember here is to start with fresh & healthy herbs! Then you want to get some great bottles (Save-On-Crafts has tons of them in a great variety of sizes, we ended up getting ours from A.C.Moore when they had a sale). Once you get your bottles and ensure they have a solid seal, please wash them out thoroughly!
2. DRY Herbs: Once you have the bottles rinsed, they are going to need to dry out fully. You also want to clean your rosemary! Soak all your sprigs in a water bath for about an hour and then rinse in a colander a few times. Once you are sure they are fully clean, set out on a towel to dry for about 48 hours OR place in an Oven set to “Warm” for a couple hours (I voted to dry it on the dining room table, which helped make the house smell great too)
3. Heat Oil to get Herb Flavor: After everything is clean and ready – we are finally ready to do our Infusion! 
Start off by pouring half of your Olive Oil and about a dozen sprigs of clean rosemary into a large pot on low heat. To keep the olive oil from deep frying your herbs, ensure that it all goes in at the same time and that at no point does the oil spatter (test this by dusting the oil with a tiny bit of water and it doesn’t sizzle, the oil should be luke warm). Let the mixture sit and infuse for 5-10 minutes, until the leaves of the rosemary begin to wilt and they turn a different shade of green. Turn heat off and let cool completely.
4. Stuff your Bottles: While the Oil is infusing, put a sprig of rosemary (or two) into each bottle. DO NOT use the same rosemary that you used to infuse your oil – it is sad and pathetic looking by this point.
5. Carefully Fill your Bottles: Once your oil is cooled, use a small liquid measuring cup, or pancake pouring cup to scoop out Oil and (using a funnel) pour into each bottle. Fill each bottle about 1/2 way with the infused Oil and then fill the rest of the way with your fresh/plain oil.
6. Cork & Clean & Rest: For easy clean-up, pour the oil into bottles over a foil-lined sheet so you just need to scrunch up the foil and throw out! Cork well and let sit for about a week for full infusion. If you’re planning on gifting right away, the oil will still be deliciously infused after just a few days, but mention to the giftee that if they let it sit in the cupboard for a full two weeks the olive oil will reach its peak. I suggest putting a “use by” date on the bottles/labels. IF people must store for longer, the fridge is the way to go.
And I leave you with this, Today’s Question of the Day… What is the best homemade gift you have ever given/received?