Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

blueberry

Whole Food Rainbow Watermelon Fruitsicles (Popsicles)

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I’m really excited to share this watermelon popsicle recipe with you today. It’s been a long time since I made popsicles (I think the last time I did, I was a kid) and they turned out so pretty! I also just got a new (used) camera to play with and am really impressed with the quality of photos it produces (and the much faster shutter speed).

I had a heck of a time finding some popsicle molds here in Canada. I happened to see a small basic set for at Canadian Tire, but just as I was checking out I found 4 sets of these cute larger style popsicles and quickly snapped them up. I haven’t been able to find the exact popsicle molds I have online, but there are similar types with drip catches and straws available here.

I also got to try out a new natural product. I received some samples of Habitall – All Natural Sugar Replacement, which is aspartame-free, sugar-free, and calorie-free. It’s made with monk fruit, erythritol and polydextrose. Normally I never use sugar replacements such as Splenda or aspartame as they give me headaches and I don’t feel so well after. But for those looking for a calorie free sweetener (that doesn’t have the awful aftertaste of stevia) I think Habitall can be quite useful and best of all there’s no negative side effects. I added a little bit to my all fruit popsicles just to enhance the watermelon flavor, as when they’re frozen it can taste really icy and less fruity.

My watermelon popsicles actually turned out really yummy! Habitall can be used cup for cup as a sugar replacement so I can also see other uses for it such as lemonade, muffins, cupcakes or cookies for those who are looking to reduce calories, are diabetic or are trying to get off sugar in general.

Want A Free Bag of Habitall To Try?

The company also gave me some samples to give away to 2 lucky people. So if you’re interested in receiving a bag to try, just comment below and let me know what you’d like to use it for and 2 comments will be randomly selected to win.

Right now they are doing an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds to help get Habitall into stores at an affordable price for everyone. You can only get it through the campaign for now, but if enough funds are raised in the next few weeks you might see Habitall available soon near you.

Whole food watermelon popsicles are really easy to make and you can use pretty much any fruit juice or puree as the base and diced fruit for added color and texture. Next I think I might try mango puree popsicles with sliced strawberries!

Whole Food Rainbow Watermelon Fruitsicles (Popsicles)

Makes 16-20 popsicles (depending on size) I made 16 90 ml popsicles.

Ingredients:

4 cups blended watermelon puree (about 1/4 medium watermelon) You can also use cantaloupe if desired
1 tbsp Habitall natural sweetener or cane sugar *optional
1 medium ripe ataulfo mango, diced or 2 ripe peaches peeled and diced
1 cup pitted cherries, sliced in half (I used frozen) or raspberries
1/2 cup blueberries (I used wild blueberries)

Directions:

1. Prepare the watermelon puree for the popsicles. Seedless watermelon works best. Blend watermelon and optional Habitall natural sweetener or sugar in a Vitamix or food processor on high until smooth. Set aside. (You can leave out the sweetener if desired.)
2. Dice the mango or peaches (make sure they are ripe or they will be too sour)
3. Portion out the cherries and the blueberries.
4. Assemble watermelon popsicles. Place mango or peach in bottom of popsicle molds, next layer in the cherries halves (or raspberries) and then blueberries.
5. Pour the watermelon puree into the popsicle molds until they are full. Place popsicle sticks on top.
6. Freeze for 6-7 hours.
7. Before serving run the popsicle try under warm to hot water to loosen popsicles from mold.

Enjoy!

Disclosure: I was not paid or given any compensation to promote Habitall. I received free samples to review and to give away to blog readers. I paid for shipping myself. 

What is your favorite flavor of popsicle or what combination would you like to try?

Contest is closed! Winners were Lavisha and Brooke. Congratulations!

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

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

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.