Plant Based U

Fat-Free and Low Fat Vegan Plant Based Recipes

soy-free

80/10/10 Recipe: Raw Cherry Blaster Smoothie

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I love love love cherries. I also love love love cherry smoothies. If you’ve never had one, YOU MUST TRY IT. Pitting cherries by hand is kind of a pain, but scroll to the bottom to find out how I do mine quickly.

If you live in the USA you can also look for frozen black cherries at the grocery store, those are great to have too. You can also buy cherries cheaper at the end of the summer season and pit a bunch yourself and freeze them in plastic bags to use all year which is handy to have.

Cherry Blaster Smoothie

Serves 1

Ingredients:

1 cup black cherries, pitted

1 banana (ripe)

1 ataulfo mango (or 1 cup frozen mango)

1 cup peaches or apricots, pitted (sweet ones)

1-2 dates (optional, if your fruit is more tart)

Directions:

1. Place the first four ingredients into Vitamix or blender and blend until smooth. If your blender needs a bit of water to run properly add a little to get things going. Taste test. If it’s sweet enough, you’re done. If your peaches or mangos are not very sweet, add the dates and blend again. Taste test and serve.

To pit cherries easily, I recommend the Cherry It Cherry Pitter which I got on Amazon. I love this thing!

 

Fat Free Vegan Pumpkin Raisin Muffins Sweetened With Maple Syrup

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I love pumpkin muffins. I remember the first time I had them as a kid, I was at school and one of the teachers brought us some. They were so moist and delicious. Even though I’m not a big fan of desserts like pumpkin pie, I enjoy things like pumpkin loaf and pumpkin muffins.

But often the really delicious muffin recipes can have a lot of sugar and oil in them. So I’ve created a new recipe that has no oil, and much less sugar.

Feel free to make these with whatever kind of flour you have on hand, but I try to mix it up once in a while and stay away from refined white flour. Also light maple syrup is less sweet than sugar, but adds nice moisture to these along with the canned pumpkin. I really love maple syrup added to baked goods.

Sometimes organic canned pumpkin is on sale at Whole Foods, so I stock up so I can make more pumpkin inspired recipes!

Fat Free and Vegan Pumpkin Raisin Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups spelt flour (or whole wheat flour)
1/2 cup oat flour (you can grind your own steel cut oats in Vitamix, or coffee grinder for this)
2 tsp celyon cinnamon (this is the sweet “true” cinnamon and tastes so yummy amazing!)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 14 oz can pumpkin puree
2/3 cup light maple syrup (or 1/3 cup agave + 1/4-1/3 cup water)
2/3 cup raisins (or as much or little as you like, I love raisins in baked goods!)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 Degrees F.

2. Mix the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

3. Add the pumpkin, maple syrup, raisins and mix until combined.

4. Spray muffin pan with non stick spray or use a silicon muffin tray.

5. Spoon batter into cups with a tablespoon filling just below the top about 2/3 – 3/4 full.

6. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until a toothpick in the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

7. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing and placing muffins on a wire rack.

Enjoy!

Nutritional Info
• Servings Per Recipe: 12
• Amount Per Serving
• Calories: 160.3
• Total Fat: 1.1 g
• Cholesterol: 0.0 mg
• Sodium: 235.5 mg
• Total Carbs: 35.5 g
• Dietary Fiber: 4.0 g
• Protein: 3.2 g

What’s your favorite addition to pumpkin muffins, raisins, walnuts, cranberries? Something else?

Fat Free Raw Vegan Mango Cilantro Salsa

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FTC Notice: This blog post contains affiliate links and product links that go to supporting the blog.

This raw vegan mango salsa is probably my favourite ever.  When you have delicious ripe mangoes mixed with the cilantro, red onion and tomatoes it’s heaven.  I serve this on many things! Salad, lettuce wraps, cabbage bowls, as a dip etc. Try this out you will love it!


This recipe is also featured in my Savory Raw Dinner Recipes book and dvd set.

If you’ve never seen an ataulfo/champagne mango before this is what it looks like. You can generally find these in the grocery stores or Asian markets from April to July/August in North America. Outside of that season, they tend to get brown spots and are bad inside, kind of like bad avocados. They taste MUCH nicer and sweeter in season. I love putting these types of mangoes into my plant-based recipes in homemade salsa for burritos, tacos, or burrito bowls.

How To Tell If An Ataulfo Mango Is Ripe:

This type of mango will turn pale yellow to light orange on the peel. It will be soft to the touch and smell fragrant. You should only cut open this mango when the skin starts to wrinkle and look “old”. Trust me then it will be juicy and sweet. If you have any that get black spots on the skin keep them away from other mangos so they don’t spread. As it ripens the black spots will spread. Cut these parts out and don’t eat them.


 

This is what an ataulfo mango looks like when cut open. It is stringless unlike the Kent or Tommy “red and green” skinned mangoes. And is much more delicate.

Raw Vegan Mango Cilantro Salsa

Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 ataulfo/champagne mango
1 small tomato, deseeded, diced
1/4 cup red onion, diced
1/4 cup cilantro diced
1 clove garlic, minced


Directions:

Score the mango into cubes and cut off with a knife or spoon, or peel the mango and use square plate or veggie chopper to cube. Combine ingredients in a bowl and mix gently.

Variations: 

Thai, Filipino, and Indian Honey mangoes are of the same family, you can certainly use these mangoes as well for this salsa. It is much better with a stringless variety, so these are my first pick over the “red and green” style mangoes.