Vegan's delight- Olives+Almonds Dip.

This weekend we went over to meet our old neighbours. A lovely family who is big time in to healthy living, healthy eating and Yoga. And oh, they are also vegans. So anyway,we caught up over some lovely finger food. My friend also served us this awesome pesto like vegan dip...so simple and bursting with flavours of olives, garlic, shallots and almonds.  I was blown away really! Pat, my friend, is a wonderful cook. While she herself is a vegan, she comes up with some amazing fish recipes. I have tried a few and wow can she cook! She also happens to be a very generous soul and when she saw my amazed delight with the dip that she had served, she immediately told me how it's done. Without even asking! It was so good and is so easy to make, trust me, you will be sending me 'fraandship' requests on fb! Ok sad joke. 

Without wasting anymore time, here is what you will need.

1 cup of fresh green olives, chopped, de-seeded. Make sure you are using good quality ones.
1/2 cup of soaked almonds or almond powder
2-3 pods of garlic
1/2 medium chopped red onion
Juice of 1 small fresh lemon
1-2 tbsp of olive oil
1 green chilli (optional)-I didnt use any since my son was going to be eating some.
salt to taste.

All you have to do is blend the above to a coarse paste. Thats it! Use it as a spread, a dip, as a topping for baked fish/pizzas...the possibilities are endless. I liked it so much, I had spoonfuls of it just by itself. Infact, I finished the whole bowl actually. What must she have thought of my table manners! Sigh.

I served the dip with some plain Nachos. Which was the rubbish part ofcourse....

Used the remaining bit to spread over a baked sea bass fish dish I was making for dinner later...the recipe is from here here . A lovely food blog I discovered yesterday.

This is so good, promise me you will try it at least once??? Pretty please! While I am wondering if I should turn Vegan....!