The simple life

Happy 2012 everyone! I hope you all had an amazing end of 2011 and are ready for this brand new year. I was always a big fan of New Year's Eve and I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's summer time in Brazil and I always celebrated it with friends and family. But since I'm in Europe I'm not going to big celebrations anymore (went one year and that was it) and this year wasn't different. But this year I've made a very conscious decision to spend the NYE at home with just Matteo and his mother who is visiting us. And this decision has all to do with my only resolution for 2012: to live the simple life. I think the most important thing pregnancy have taught me is to take it easy and enjoy simple things. And it worked pretty well for me in 2011 so I want to do it more and more in 2012.


For our NYE we decided to have simple (here ya go!) food and not any kind of complicated meal. We'd have just appetizers and alcohol free drinks (both me and Matteo don't drink alcohol at all). Matteo would help me with the preparation and we'd play cards. We ended up having Tomato Rosemary Scones from Vegan Brunch, Sun-Dried Tomato Dip from Veganomicon, pistachio nuts, hummus (this was the only thing we didn't make ourselves) and a lovely Capers Dip which Matteo came up with the recipe from his mind while he was preparing the other dip. Everything was delicious and 2012 arrived just like that: simple and bringing us happiness.

Here's the recipe of the Capers Dip:

Ingredients:

1 cup white beans, drained

1/4 cup capers

2 tablespoon olive oil

1/3 cup nutritional yeast

3  tablespoon water

salt

1  tablespoon French's mustard

Put the white beans, capers, mustard, olive oil and water in the food processor or blender and mix it until smooth. Add the nutritional yeast and salt and blend it again. Check if it's salty enough to your taste.

Cover and chill for at least half an hour. Serve it with crackers or slices of fake meat or vegan cheese.