When Sun-Dried Tomatoes met Caramelised Almonds

This recent vegan creation was made while visiting my family in Lithuania. Everyone really enjoyed it and couldn't believe that vegan food is that delicious and surprising. 

An unusual sweet and slightly spicy spread is made from sun-dried tomatoes and freshly caramelised almonds.

If you interested press read more, enjoy and have fun with it! Perfect for a Friday night with friends, family and some good wine.

​I love spontaneous decisions. That is how I ended up in London. At the moment I am siting in a small café not far from London Eye, drinking vegan mocha & waiting for my friend to arrive here as well. Just yesterday I was at home cooking vegan dishes for my family and since I have couple hours left (and I need to charge my iPhone so I can take more selfies) I thought I could type up one more recipe. 

This time I am sharing very innovative and unusual sun-dried tomatoes spread. It’s quite easy to make and takes about 15 minutes of your precious time. It does not require a lot of ingredients but you must have a blender or food processor. If you decided to give it a try, following ingredients will be needed.

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Few ingredients that you need to grab while shopping after work:

• 1 jar of sun-dried tomatoes
• 100g of almonds
• 3 table spoons of white sugar
• 30-50ml of spicy chilli infused olive oil (alternatively, extra virgin olive oil + 1/2 dry chilli pepper)

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In the picture you can see two spreads. So if you have time (it's Friday you know!) you can read my previous Avocado Spread recipe to make the left one, and follow these notes to impress everyone with the following sun-dried tomatoes and caramelised almonds spread!

The Spread

​The recipe is pretty straight forward. First of all, prepare your almonds. Heat up a non-sticky frying pan and place almonds in it. Fry them for about 5 minutes on a medium heat till you can see almond oil coming out from them. Then add in sugar, and keep stirring everything for about 5-7 minutes, till sugar is fully melted and almonds are nicely brown and caramelised. Take the frying pan away from the heat.

Now take all sun-dried tomatoes out from the jar and chop them up. Place them in the food processor and blend for a couple seconds. Then put almonds there as well and pour in some chilli olive oil (if you are using plain olive oil, pour it in along with finely chopped dry chillies). Blend everything on the maximum power for about 20-30 seconds and then check if spread is not too dry. Pour in some more oil if you find it very dry and blend for about 45 seconds more (P.S. if you are happy with the texture and are not adding any more olive oil, you still need to blend it for about 45 more seconds).

You can decorate the spread with some fresh basil leaves and chillies & serve it on warm ciabatta bread slices. I hope you and your friends are going to enjoy it!

P.S. This slightly sweet and spicy spread goes really well with dry red wine

Thank you very much for reading and see you soon!

Now I am going to explore my favourite city on Earth, visit some must-see iconic places and few vegan restaurants (reviews will be on the website at some point), take more selfies and enjoy the sunshine!

Have a lovely Friday.

With love,
VK