Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

Veronica Grace

Special Occasions: Plant Based Cheesecake and Blueberry Rooibos Compote (Vegan Cheesecake)

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Today I made a special recipe for my friend’s birthday. A vegan cheesecake with vegan graham cracker crust and blueberry rooibos compote. When trying to impress friends and especially non-vegans, having a great vegan comfort food treat can be a little daunting, but trust me this recipe is easy.



Since I have never made a vegan cheesecake before, and the last time I made actual cheesecake was almost a decade a go, I decided to look online and see what I could find. My friend requested an almond-lemony flavoured cheesecake, and what do you know? I found one here. It uses firm silken tofu and Tofutti better than cream cheese. With the almond extract and fresh lemon juice, it really tastes nice, and I could not detect any tofu flavour at all. I made the recipe almost exactly as the post, but the only firm silken tofu I could find was by Mori-nu and it comes in a 12 oz size and not 14 oz. It seemed fine and enough filling anyways for the cheesecake.



The cheesecake part was very easy, since I had a Vitamix and I could just combine everything and blend. I still blended a little longer than normal for good measure, just to be sure there was no sugar granules or chunks of corn starch.

The hard part of this recipe was that there are no vegan graham crackers (they contain honey) or crusts at Whole Foods in Vancouver, BC I could find. So I had to do it old school and make my own graham crackers… I’ve never even made any crackers before… so here’s how what I did…



I found a recipe here for vegan graham crackers and smores. I didn’t know how much of the recipe I would need for the crust, so I made the whole thing. But now I know I could have halved or even thirded the recipe since I now have a lot of extra graham crackers. I froze them for later in case I need a dessert crust again.

You definitely DO NOT need to make a crust for vegan cheesecake, your recipe will be much lower in fat if you don’t, since I can’t see any way to make a fat free or low fat pie crust.  The graham crumbs are held in by Earth Balance, which is a highly processed food so I don’t recommend making this recipe regularly, just for special occasions like birthdays and holidays for your friends and family. My friend likes graham cracker crusts so that’s why I made it.



A note about the graham cracker recipe if you make it, I wouldn’t bake them so long. My crackers were baked for the full time and were SO freaking hard. Like dangerous to chew hard. It took me forever to break them down in the food processor. I should have used the Vitamix instead, but it had the cream cheese filling in it. But it took forever to get down to crumbs. It would barely crush with my stone rolling pin! Try baking 30-35 minutes only. They don’t need to be totally firm when you take them out, they will solidify. And if you roll them too thin they will turn too brown and burn. The texture is not that great for eating, as it’s a little gritty, but if you’re into whole wheat treats you might not mind.



Now on to the part where my recipe comes in. Earlier this week some friends and I had a vegan tea cook off and I made a blueberry rooibus tea compote for my raw banana ice-cream made with Provence rooibus tea. It was very delicious, I decided to replicate it again for this cheesecake.

Here’s the recipe:

Plant Based Blueberry Rooibus Tea Compote

Ingredients:

3 cups frozen blueberries
1/2 cup blueberry rooibos tea or other rooibos tea (steeped at double strength)
3-4 tbsp granulated sugar,  maple syrup, honey, or vegan honey
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice



Directions:

1. Add 1 1/2 cups of the blueberries, the tea, sugar and lemon juice and cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes.
2. Add the remaining blueberries and cook for another 6-8 minutes.
3. Taste test and adjust to your liking, add more sugar for more sweet, or more tea for less sweet.
4. Serve over vegan cheesecake, ice-cream, yogurt, and more.

My suggestion for a healthier decadent vegan treat would be to serve this compote like I originally did, over fat free banana ice-cream made in the Vitamix or a juicer. Then it’s completely fat and guilt-free.

My rooibos banana ice-cream was:

1/2 cup Provence rooibos tea (steeped at double strength)
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 frozen bananas (make sure your bananas are ripe, see my post here about how to tell if bananas are ripe)

You’ll need a Vitamix to make this, or let the banana thaw a little bit and slice into small pieces for your regular blender or food processor. Add the tea and extract and then the bananas. Turn the Vitamix onto 5 and use the tamper to push it down and cream the bananas. Continue pushing it all down until it’s blended evenly. This should take no more than 30-60 seconds, since you don’t want your ice-cream to start melting.

Serves 2 large servings, 4-6 small dessert servings.

Let me know what you think!



Update!

I made this vegan cheesecake again crustless and with the same blueberry sauce but without the rooibos tea. If you make the vegan cheesecake crustless, make sure you spray some cooking spray on the bottom of your dish! Mine would not come out, so it was messy.  Also the blueberry sauce was rather 1 dimensional. I really missed the subtle complex flavours left by the fruity blueberry rooibus tea. So I really hope you will try it. It will not be the same if you get another kind of blueberry tea, like green tea because it’s less fragrant.



Creamy Raw Vegan Mexican Cilantro Corn Soup

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FTC Notice: This post contains affiliate links which go towards supporting the blog. This recipe is featured in my BRAND NEW 2 part Savory Raw Dinner Recipes DVD set.  It is super easy and very delicious!

Savory Raw Vegan Dinner Recipes

When I was thinking up raw soups to make, that would look great and I would enjoy eating, I got the idea of packing in more and more veg into it instead of having it be all heavy from nuts or lots of avocados. The solution was to add some fresh yellow bell pepper, for flavour, bulk, and colour. It really adds to this simple combination of corn and avocado and took it to a whole new level. Whenever I show people pictures of this soup, they can’t believe it’s raw and think it looks so great. Well, it tastes even better too. You can also get very creative with the garnishing.  I went for a very simple look to display the solid soup ingredients and garnishes. Of course, if you make the recipe you can add as much as you like. You can also make this a little spicier by adding more chili powder.

The beauty of raw soups is that they are quite fast to make (aside from cutting fresh corn off a cobb, you can use frozen if you must) and you can blend them until they are the temperature you want in the Vitamix. So they can be room temperature, warm or quite warm. Just blend for 30-60 seconds for room temperature 1-2 minutes for warm, and then once you get past 2 minutes you are essentially really heating the soup and can cook it a little.  So keep this in mind, depending on whether you want a room temperature raw soup, or a transitional warm “raw” soup. This recipe will please even the most skeptical people of raw soups. Just blend it a little longer so it’s warm and not cold if you’re using corn and bell peppers straight from the fridge. Please let me know what you think! I love your feedback. For more delicious recipes check out my Savory Raw Dinner Recipes 

Creamy Raw Vegan Mexican Cilantro Corn Soup

from my recipe program: Savory Raw Dinner Recipes

Ingredients:

3 cobs of corn 2 yellow peppers, cut into chunks
1 small onion, cut into chunks 2-3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 small avocado or 1/2 large
1/2 cup cilantro diced
2 1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp Herbamere or sea salt
1 1/2 large limes juiced
1/2 red pepper, diced
diced chili peppers or chili pepper powder to garnish green onions to garnish

Directions:
1. Cut the corn off the cob. (Make sure you have a sharp knife, a bowl or plate to catch the corn, and a towel. It’s messy!)
2. Put half of the corn, both yellow peppers, avocado, onion, garlic, half of the cilantro, cumin, lime, and salt into the Vitamix or food processor. 3. Use the Vitamix tamper to push ingredients down into the blade and blend until creamy. (If you don’t have a Vitamix and need to add a little water to make it blend, do so)
4. Pour into 2 bowls. Add remaining corn and red peppers. If you like it spicy add diced chili peppers.
5. Garnish with cilantro, red pepper, green onions and a sprinkle of chili pepper powder. Serve!

How did you like this soup? Did you know you can use the base of this as a raw salad dressing too?

How To Tell If A Banana Is Ripe With Pictures! (A Yellow Banana Is Not Ripe Enough)

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Low Fat Vegan Chef's Ripe Spotted Bananas

So you want to know how to tell if a banana is ripe and if the ones you have are ripe enough.

One of the most troubling things I find when promoting fresh fruits and vegetables to people is that they don’t understand that many fruits have to ripen before being eaten.



You cannot just assume you can simply pick the fruit up from the grocery store display, take it home and eat it right away like a frozen dinner, a box of pasta or a can of beans. (There are a few exceptions like apples and oranges.) As society gets more and more out of touch with fresh whole foods and the majority of people are unable to identify the ingredients they are eating in processed foods, they don’t know what fruits and vegetables are supposed to taste like in general, let alone when they are unripe, ripe or overripe. …

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How To Enjoy Eating A Lot Of Apples or How To Have an Apple Happy Meal!

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FTC Notice: This post contains affiliate links that go towards supporting the blog.

So you live in a Northern climate, it’s winter, there’s not a lot of tropical fruit around, there’s not really any “ripe” fruit around, you don’t have a lot of money to spend on produce; you’re hungry and want an easy inexpensive meal.

My friends, let me introduce to you the apple. It’s quite versatile and easy to get ALL over the world all year round. They keep well, can lasts for weeks if not months in the fridge or a cold cellar.



But how do you get this apply-goodness inside you without it being a pain in the jaw and eating all those waxy peels?…

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80/10/10 Recipe: Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Grape Juice

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FTC Notice: This blog post contains affiliate links which go towards supporting the blog. We got some delicious pomegranates from Costco this week, so I’ve been eating them different ways, snacking on the seeds, straight juice and mixed juice. Today I’m having an (80/10/10 diet approved) antioxidant rich breakfast: a bowl of raspberries and a pomegranate, red grape, apple juice. Pomegranite juice on it’s own isn’t so bad, it just has a really bitter aftertaste. If you find it too strong and want to enjoy some nutritious juice this season, mix it with other sweet juices. Apple, grape, or pear works best. Maybe even an apple celery pomegranate concoction would be nice as well. To juice a pomegranate you’re going to want to use a citrus juicer.  The kind you press the handle down onto it. I have a Breville 800CPXL that works great You can try a hand held citrus juicer, but they’re not easy to juice like oranges, and you will find you get whole pieces stuck in crevasses near the peel. For the rest of my raw vegan juice I used my regular Breville centrifugal juicer , which I enjoy as it’s much easier to use and clean than my previous Jack Lalane juicer. I tried that one and actually returned it, it was too messy to use and clean.

Raw Vegan Pomegranate Apple Grape Juice

Ingredients: 1 pomegranate 2-3 peeled apples 2 cups of red grapes (sweet) Directions: Cut the pomegranate in half and using a citrus juicer, juice half of the pomegranate at a time. Really press down with the juicer until the pomegranate seeds all come out. Repeat with the other half.  For any seeds you missed in the strainer, use a spoon and push down on them to pop out the last bits of juice. Take your apples and grapes and run them through a centrifugal juicer. Pour into a tall glass, ensuring the extra foam stays in the container and doesn’t go into the glass. Now pour your pomegranate juice into the glass with the other juice and mix. Serve with ice cubes if desired. Enjoy your delicious juice without the bitter aftertaste of pomegranate!

80/10/10 Recipe: Raw Banana Pear Berry Smoothie

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This is a really easy 80/10/10 and raw vegan fruit smoothie to make, using some ripe fruit. You want to use ripe bananas that are soft and lightly brown speckled and pears that have turned from rock hard green to soft yellow with some brown flecks.



Make sure you have ripe pears as well. If your pears have any bad spots in them cut them out before using. If your pears are really ripe like mine were it won’t add much of a gritty texture to your smoothie. Unripe, hard pears are NOT good in smoothies!

 

Raw Vegan Banana Pear Berry Smoothie

Ingredients:

3 large ripe bananas
2 very ripe bartlet pears, seeded
2 cups frozen mixed berries



Directions:

Place bananas, pears and berries into Vitamix or blender. (If you don’t have a Vitamix you need to add some water to blend) Using the tamper, push the fruit down towards the blade and turn onto 5 and then up to high. Blend for 45 sec to a minute until smooth.

Enjoy!



What do you think of this smoothie recipe?



How To Make Homemade Low Fat Raw Vegan Almond Milk In A Blender

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Almond milk is something that many people use nowadays, whether they are vegan or have dairy allergies. Sure you can buy some (non raw) almond milk at the store for your smoothies or cooking, but there’s likely going to be sugar, preservatives and other additives and synthetic stuff in it as well. While it is convenient to use pre made almond milk, it’s not a good idea to base your whole diet on processed packaged foods.



It’s very easy to make at home, and most cost effective if you enjoy using almond pulp in recipes like raw bars, cookies, crackers, or drying it out to use for almond flour. This raw almond milk is great for using in raw smoothies, raw banana ice-cream and raw dressings.

This low fat almond milk is also a nice pretty white colour and not browny tinged from additives like processed almond milk! Beautiful.



How To Make Your Own Homemade Raw Vegan Almond Milk

Ingredients:

1 cup of whole raw shelled almonds
Enough water to cover almonds if soaking overnight
4 cups filtered water (for making milk) If you want it even thinner use 5 cups of water.

Required tools:

Container to soak almonds
Metal mesh strainer/nut milk bag
Vitamix, Blendtec or other blender

Directions:

1. Soak almonds in a bowl or container with enough water to cover and let sit overnight, around 8 hours. (You can skip this step if you have a Vitamix or Blendtec)

2. Drain and rinse the almonds. Place into Vitamix or other blender with 4 cups of filtered water. Blend for about 45 sec to a minute on high. Just until all the almonds are in tiny pieces and it’s frothy.

3a. If using a nut milk bag hold the bag open over a large bowl and gently pour the blended almond milk into the middle of the open bag. Be careful not to spill pulp over the sides. Pour a little at a time and put the blender container down and close the bag at the top and squeeze the bag into the bowl to separate the almond pulp from the almond milk. You can either save the squeezed almond pulp to dry into almond flour or use to make cookies or nut balls or compost it. Continue this process until you have separate all the milk from the almond pulp. If you can’t stand and squeeze you can hang the bag filled with pulp and almond milk up above the bowl and let it drain for a while or in between breaks. Using a good quality nut milk bag you should only have to strain the milk one time if you didn’t spill any pulp over the edge.

3b. If using metal mesh strainers: get out 3 medium bowls or containers. Hold your small metal mesh strainer over one of the bowls and pour the almond mixture slowly into it. Fill up the strainer and then use a spoon to push the liquid down from the pulp. Place the extra pulp in one of the bowls if you want to save it for later. This will take a while. If using a metal strainer, keep filling it up with almond mixture and filtering the pulp from the milk with your spoon and set the pulp aside. Rinsing your strainer in between each filter will make it easier to strain and get rid of the little pieces stuck to it.  After you have filtered your almond milk once, you may want to filter the whole thing a few more times for a smooth milk. Place your filter over the last clean bowl and pour your filtered almond milk over it. You should see some froth and a little pulp being filtered out the second time. Rinse your other bowl and strainer and filter back and forth until your almond milk is smooth to your liking. I do this 6-8 times with a metal strainer for the smoothest milk.



5. Once you’re done you can store the almond milk in the fridge. Depending what you want to do with it you can leave it plain, or blend in a date and some vanilla for sweet almond milk.

I leave mine plain so I can use it for things like banana ice-cream, chia “tapioca” pudding, smoothie base, dressing base etc. I just add pitted dates or vanilla extract  or fresh vanilla bean to the recipe if I need a sweet milk.

Best used within 3 days. Store in a tightly sealed container in the refrigerator.

Have you ever made your own plant based milk at home? What’s your favourite?



80/10/10 Recipe: Raw Vegan Persimmon Fruit Pudding

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We’re coming into persimmon season soon, so I highly recommend trying them this year if you haven’t yet. You can find persimmons at Asian markets or specialty ethnic grocery stores.

Persimmons look rather like an orange-red tomato and are short and fat. When they are unripe, they will be rock hard and VERY starchy and need to be cut with a knife. Some people like the Thais enjoy eating fuyu persimmons raw in salads more like a vegetable, but personally I find they leave an awful starchy film on my tongue. So I prefer to only eat persimmons that very ripe, when the starch has fully turned into sugar and they are so delicious this way.

This persimmon pudding tastes 1000 times better than it looks, trust me! You can use ripe fuyu, or hatchia persimmons for this recipe, but I used fuyu. It took me about a week and a half to ripen them on my counter until they were soft, juicy and wrinkly on the outside.

 

This recipe is featured in my upcoming DVD series Savory Raw Dinner Recipes!

Raw Persimmon Pudding

Serves 1

This makes a great small breakfast, snack or dessert.

Ingredients:

2 fuyu persimmons, very ripe
1 banana, fresh or frozen
1-2 tbsp raisins
dried coconut (optional)

*Only use ripe persimmons. They will be very soft, a little wrinkled on the outside and look overripe, but I assure you they are not. They are absolutely amazing blended when they are at full ripeness. If yours are still hard or slightly hard, leave them alone until they are very soft!

Directions:

1. Slice the persimmons in half, scoop out insides and put into Vitamix or blender.

2. Add banana and blend on high. (For a nice cool pudding, use a frozen banana)

3. Top with raisins and coconut or fruit of choice.

Enjoy!

80/10/10 Recipe: Low Fat Raw Vegan Green Pea Lemon Dill Blended Soup

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Green peas and dill are some of my favourite green things to eat. So I decided to combine them into a tasty raw soup recipe.

This is sort of a chunky style raw soup with diced veggie chunks in a blended base. Feel free to customize it as you like, but I find that having something to chew on in raw soups is nice so it’s not just eating smoothie with a spoon.

Alternately, if you don’t love green peas raw, you can substitute more of something else like zucchini, cucumber or even diced peppers.

Raw Green Pea Lemon Dill Soup

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

Soup Base

2 cups zucchini, peeled and chopped
2 cups yellow or orange tomatoes, chopped
1 cup of celery, chopped
1/2 cup dill, chopped fine
4 green onions, chopped
5 or 6 small dates, pitted
1/2 lemon, juiced
1/4 cup of chia gel (or a tbsp or two of chia seed)
2 tsp celery powder or 1/2 tsp salt (optional)

 

Veggies:

1 celery stalk, diced
1/2 cup zucchini, diced
1/2 cup cucumber, diced
1 cup fresh or frozen peas
1 green onion, diced

*Using a veggie chopper is the fastest way to get the vegetables into little cubes to stir into the soup.

 

Directions:

1. Blend soup ingredients in a Vitamix or blender until well combined.

2. Divide soup and veggies into 2 bowls and garnish with extra dill or green onion.

Enjoy!

What do you think of this recipe?

How To Roast A Bell Pepper Over A Gas Flame

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How To Roast A Bell Pepper Over A Gas Flame

Roasting peppers are pretty easy when you have a gas stove. If you don’t have a gas stove, you can roast them over a barbecue flame or in a dish in the oven under the broiler and turn as the sides blacken.

*You may want to use tinfoil around your flame to catch the drippings, it makes quite a mess!

1. First select your pepper, make sure it is ripe (in the case of green peppers, they are actually unripe red peppers…) Turn your flame onto high/medium high and place the pepper over it. You will want to have some sort of tongs to pick up the pepper and turn it.

2. Once a side or portion has turned black, you are going to turn it over to another part. (Please use tongs, not hands…) Continue doing this until every side of your pepper turns black. Including the top and bottom!

3. When your pepper is all ugly and blackened place it into a metal pot with a lid, or wrap in some tinfoil if you want. But the pot is easier and less wasteful. You want a lid on the pot so that it can steam it and continue to cook the insides. Let it sit in here for 10-15 minutes.

4. Take your pepper(s) out of the pot/tinfoil (with tongs) and place on a cutting board. Slice it in half and scoop out the seeds, juices and take off the top.

5. Slice each half into another half and start sliding the blackened skin off of the pepper. Do NOT run it under water, as you will wash away a lot of the flavour. Just use a spoon or a knife to scrape off the little tiny black bits once you’ve removed most of it with your hands.

6. Now your peppers are ready to use. You can add them on top of pizza, blend into hummus, put into burritos or quesadillas, add to salads and more.

Enjoy!