Cheesy Baked Flatbread Chips with Rustic Tapenade

Caution: Binge Alert. Olives, dear readers, are my downfall. My Achilles heel. I have been known to eat a jar of those little green olives in one sitting, pimentos and all. My martini? A blue cheese stuffed olive, extra dirty, puh-leeze. I love you, olive juice. Maybe you’re like me, and you dream of olives all day and night. If that is indeed the case, then the flatbread recipe below is, and I freely admit this, just a vehicle for the olive tapenade, so I don’t feel so guilty just spooning this fishy, salty, olive-y, garlicky goodness in my mouth all by itself. Flatbread chips keep things, well, honest.

This is the perfect appetizer to whip up if you’re pressed for time, too, because I’d bet that you have 99% of the ingredients in your home right now. Just heat up the oven, cut some flatbreads into chips (you get bonus points for heart shapes…what could be more romantic than some tapenade shared between a couple over a bottle of tempranillo?) and scatter some cheese before baking to crisp, cheesy perfection. If your favorite grocer carries a tapenade that works for you, by all means use it, but my fail-proof recipe is below. Extra tapenade can be added to pizzas, flatbread wraps, sandwiches. But who are we kidding, really? I usually lick the bowl clean.

And if you’re an olive lover, like me, you just might, too.

-Amy at Flatout