chop

The Most Decadent and Healthy Dessert You Can Make for Mom this Weekend

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Decadent Healthy Dessert Mothers Day

It is common to end the meal with a rich, chocolatey dessert, or fudge, cookies or brownies.

This decadent and healthy raw vegan cheesecake will absolutely change the way you think about healthy desserts.

You don’t need to have processed sugar, gluten, flour, milk, eggs or fake frosting to make a dessert taste spectacular. Actually, quite the opposite!! When you create a recipe with real food, real ingredients and keep it as raw, organic and natural as possible, the flavours combine to create a magical, decadent dessert that will knock your socks off! And Mom’s too!

Jo’s Raw Vegan Cheesecake Recipe

Ahead of time:

  1. Take frozen blueberries, cherries and strawberries out of the freezer and let thaw separately in small bowls. You can use fresh berries, but when the frozen option thaws, it creates a nice juice that adds to the flavour of the cheesecakes.
  2. Begin soaking 1.5 cups of raw cashews in water

For the Crust:

1 cup packed pitted dates
1 cup raw walnuts

Decadent DessertAdd dates and walnuts to a food processor and chop until small bits remain and it forms into a ball. Pour into a bowl. If too wet, add a few more walnuts, or if too dry, add a few more dates.

Put 12-15 muffin cups into a muffin tin and press the mixture almost 2cm deep into each muffin cup. Set in freezer while creating the next steps.

For the Cheesecake:

1.5 cups raw, soaked cashews (for a few minutes while making the crust)
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 cup of coconut milk (if you can separate the solidified cream from the milk in the can, the thicker consistency is much better) or use coconut cream
1/2 cup real maple syrup (or less to taste)

Decadent DessertAdd all ingredients to high speed blender and blend on high until creamy and smooth. Adjust to taste with a bit more or less maple syrup. Pour into bowl and then spoon on top of the walnut-date crust (that was hardened in the freezer).

For the Topping:

Spoon the defrosted fruit onto the cashew cheesecake and press some of the berries into the cheesecake so they don’t roll off. Add a little juice on top. Use your favourite fruits for the topping – I used blueberries, strawberries and black cherries.

Freeze the muffin trays for an hour or so until the cheesecake is firm. Move to the fridge until you serve. They soften quickly and this is the best time to serve them to your special guests.

Decadent Dessert

Enjoy!

Recipes Volume 2 – Hearty and Healthy

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Recipes Volume 2 - Hearty and Healthy

It’s time for another volume of recipes! We always focus on finding ways to eat higher quantities of fruits and vegetables. There are thousands of phytonutrients in just one piece of fruit or one vegetable, and the best part is that we haven’t even scientifically identified them all yet, nor do we fully understand how they work synergistically together! But we do know that they are the foods with the densest quantities of vitamins, nutrients and antioxidants, so we try to eat as many servings of F+V as we can every day!

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DINNER:

Easy Slow Cooker Sweet Potato Black Bean Quinoa Soup

It’s still winter up here in the northern hemisphere, so we’ll share a delicious, hearty slow cooker soup that you can start in the morning and enjoy at dinner!

3 large sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 large sweet onion, diced
3 cups diced tomatoes
2 cups chopped carrots
1 cup chopped apple (remove skins)
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili flakes
1 cup finely chopped kale
1 cup finely chopped spinach
3/4 tsp salt and pepper
5 cups water
1.5 cups cooked quinoa
1.5 cups cooked black beans

Place sweet potatoes, onion, tomatoes, carrots, tomato paste, apple, garlic, cumin, chill flakes, kale, spinach and salt and pepper into slow cooker with water. Cook on high for 4 hours and then add cooked quinoa and black beans and cook for 1 more hour. Enjoy!

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LUNCH:

Jo-Anne’s Amazing (almost) Raw Pad Thai

This is one of my most favourite raw lunch options. It’s so easy to throw everything into the blender, and mandolin/chop up your veggies! (Be careful with the mandolin, those things are dangerous!)

To make the sauce, In a high speed blender, add:
4 pitted dates
3 basil leaves
1 roma tomato
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp coconut aminos (or soy sauce if you don’t have aminos)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 shakes ginger powder
5 shakes Himalayan sea salt
1 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 tsp garlic powder

For the Noodles:

Chop 6-7 large leaves of romaine or leaf lettuce
Mandolin slice 1-2 carrots into match sticks
Mandolin slice 1/2 a cucumber into match sticks
Mandolin slice 1 stalk celery into match sticks
Mandolin slice 2 peppers into slices (choose yellow, orange or red!)

(or you can use your spiralizer for the carrots and cucumber)

Drizzle the sauce over your veggies and enjoy!

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BREAKFAST:

Cherry Berry Smoothie

This is a delicious smoothie to kick start your morning! You’ll love the bursts of flavour to awaken your taste buds and rev up your day! Filled with healthy fats and antioxidants, this one is a keeper!

To your high speed blender, add:

1/2 cup frozen cherries
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1 frozen banana
1 handful spinach
2 tbsp raw cacao powder
2 tbsp chia seeds
5 ice cubes
1.5 cups unsweetened almond milk

Blend until smooth and enjoy!! Recipe can easily be doubled to feed the rest of your family!

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