Raw Vegan Watermelon Cups

Here is a fabulous idea for a summer fruit salad. It is the perfect party appetizer. Yes, it has several steps and looks like a lot of work, but it really wasn't that bad. The most time consuming part was dicing the fruit for the fruit salad. If you wanted to enjoy this recipe with a little less work, you could simply rough chop all of the ingredients for the fruit salad and serve in bowls. I highly recommend making the cilantro-lime creme dressing to top your fruit salad- it is quite good!

This recipe was inspired by this post. I raw-veganized it for the version below. This recipe does not contain any dairy, eggs, gluten, grains, soy, corn, or refined sugar.

Raw Vegan Watermelon Cups

Ingredients


For the Fruit Salad: 
1 mini seedless watermelon, 3-5 lbs
2/3 cup jicama, small dice
4 ripe yellow peaches, small dice
1/3 cup sweet or red onion, finely chopped
1/2 granny smith apple, small dice
1 clove garlic, pressed
1-2 tbsp fresh lime juice (depending on how tangy you want it)
1/2 fresh jalapeno, small dice (seeds and membrane removed if you don't like spicy stuff)
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped plus several small whole leaves to garnish
Sea salt and freshly cracked black pepper

For the Cream Sauce:
3/4 cup soaked cashews (soak raw cashews in filtered water for 4-8 hours, drain)
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 Tablespoons agave nectar
1/4 cup filtered water
Pinch of himalayan salt
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
1 tbsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
1 tbsp minced fresh jalapeno

Method

To make the watermelon cups:
Cut the ends off of the watermelon. Stand the watermelon up on one of the flat ends and cut off the sides, forming a rectangle. Discard the rind, but keep the watermelon "scraps" to add to the fruit salad.
Cut the rectangle into cubes. I pretty much just sliced mine evenly into squares- think Rubix Cube :)
Use a knife or a melon baller to hollow out the inside of each cube. I made mine square because I was in the mood to put in some extra effort, but you could just use a melon baller or spoon and make little wells in the cube. Once the cube is filled with fruit salad, you don't really see the shape of the hole anyway.
Put the watermelon cubes in the refrigerator until you are ready to fill them.

To make the fruit salad:
Finely dice the remaining watermelon, jicama, peaches, onion, green apple, and jalapeno.
Add to bowl, add lime juice and garlic.
Add chopped cilantro, salt and pepper to taste, and stir to combine.
Refrigerate until ready to fill cups.

To make the creme sauce:
Blend cashews, lemon juice, agave, water and salt until smooth.
In a bowl, add cilantro, lime juice, jalapeno and 1/2 cup of the cashew creme and stir to combine.

To assemble: 
Fill watermelon cubes with fruit salad, top with cilantro lime sauce, and enjoy!

This recipe is linked to Made-from-scratch Monday, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays and Allergy Free Wednesday- click on the links for more great ideas for sugar free, gluten free, allergy friendly recipes.

Mini Pie Winners Announced

I have some exciting news to share!

Vegan Culinary Crusade has announced the winners of their Raw Mini Pie Challenge - and guess what??? The Healing Kitchen Key Lime Pie was the winner! 

WOW! 

I was SO surprised -and thrilled- to get the great news!

Click on over to their page to read about all of the delicious entries & finalists.

Key Lime (Mini!) Pies

I created this recipe for an online recipe contest. I am so nervous and excited... this is my first contest! Click for more on Vegan Culinary Crusade's Raw Recipe Challenge, and to see the other beautiful entries. Wow. 

Since I'm in Florida, I decided to make... what else? Key Lime Pie! It's the state pie, you know : ) Can you believe that Key Limes and macadamias are both local? As in- people have them in their back yards??? How amazing is that? (I have to remind myself of the good things about Florida while we melt in the summer heat and humidity right now) Three months of sweltering heat... ah, it's the price we pay to have tropical fruits in the back yard... 

OK... here goes... enjoy, with warm wishes from Florida! xo

Bailey the Beach Dog 

(and Healing Kitchen mascot :)

Raw Vegan Key Lime Mini Pies

Makes three 4"pies

Ingredients

For the crust
3/4 cup macadamia nuts
1/4 cup pine nuts
Approximately 10 pitted dates, unsoaked
Pinch himalayan salt

For the key lime filling
1 cup soaked cashews
2 tablespoons key lime juice (if you can't find key limes, persian limes will do) Reserve a slice of lime or curl some lime zest for garnish
2 tablespoons light agave nectar
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped
Approximately 1/4 cup filtered water (just enough to blend)
Teeny pinch of himalayan salt

For the vanilla creme (you will have extra vanilla creme)
1 cup soaked cashews
3 tablespoons light agave nectar
1 vanilla bean- scraped or ground whole in coffee grinder (see this post)
Approximately 1/4 cup filtered water- enough to blend to a creamy texture

Method

Crust
Briefly pulse macadamia nuts, pine nuts, and himalayan salt in food processor until dry and crumbly. Don't overprocess or the crust will become oily.

Add dates and process until combined. Amount of dates will vary- you want a consistency that will stick together when you press it between your fingers.

Press the mixture into your desired pie pan.

Set pie crusts aside. Tip: put your pie shells in the freezer while making the filling. When you are ready, the cold crust slides out of the tart pan much easier. (or maybe this is just because I'm in Florida, where it is so hot that things tend to melt just sitting on the kitchen counter? LOL)

Filling
Blend all ingredients in Vita-Mix or blender. Pour into pie shells.

Gently slide crusts out of tart pans. Add a slice of lime for garnish:

Vanilla creme
Blend all ingredients in Vita-Mix or blender.
Place a dollop of vanilla creme on each key lime pie:

Enjoy!

Note: You will have extra vanilla creme. You can use it to make more filling, make another pie, use it in a berry parfait for tomorrow's breakfast- or just eat it with a spoon. Ha. OK, try not to just eat it with a spoon. I'm sure you will find something delicious for the vanilla creme. You can't really make half a recipe for the creme, because there won't be enough volume for the blender to blend. But a little extra vanilla deliciousness is not a bad thing!

I used the leftover vanilla creme to make mini black forest pies. I had an abundance of fresh cherries in my refrigerator, and what better way to use them than (more) pie. Mmmm!

Pssst... did you know that cashews are one of the world's healthiest foods? Click here for more nutritional information about cashews, limes, dates, and pine nuts

*This post also linked on Cybele Pascal's Allergy Friendly Friday and Diet, Dessert and Dogs' Summer Wellness Weekends. Click on over and take a look at the other great allergy-friendly and healing recipes!

Watermelon Fresca

Watermelon Fresca

Ingredients

• 4 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
• 1/2 cup filtered water
• 2 tablespoons agave nectar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 cups seltzer water (optional)

Method

• Blend watermelon, water, agave, and lime juice.
• Strain through cheesecloth or strainer. Chill juice in refrigerator.
• When ready to serve, combine with seltzer water for a fizzy drink. For no fizz, use filtered water.
• Best served very cold.

We found this orange watermelon at a fruit stand down the street. Curious about orange watermelon? Click here and here for more information. 

Click here to learn more about the health benefits of watermelon.

Key Lime White Chocolate Cake Pops

Here is the second raw vegan cake pop recipe!

Key Lime White Chocolate Raw Vegan Cake Pops

Makes approximately 8 cake pops

Ingredients
1 cup raw macadamia nuts
1/8 tsp himalayan salt
Key lime juice to taste. I don't think I measured, but probably about 1 key lime/1 Tbsp juice.
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped (keep the empty bean for future recipe: vanilla sugar)
3-4 pitted dates- I didn't use these, but will next time. I think the cake pops need the dates to hold together. I used light agave nectar for a sweetener, but if you use dates, you won't need agave.
Lollipop sticks
White chocolate coating

I made macadamia flour in the VitaMix. If you don't have a VitaMix, I think you can probably skip this step and process everything in the food processor.

Add macadamia flour (or whole raw macadamias) and salt to food processor, and pulse to combine (process a little longer if whole macadamias).

Add key lime juice, vanilla bean, and dates to food processor. Process until mixed, and dough-like consistency.

Roll pieces of dough into balls, and place on cookie sheet or tray to go in the freezer. Tip: using a parchment paper (or Silpat) liner will help prevent your cake pops from freezing to the cookie sheet.

Note: My key lime pops were very soft. I think adding dates will prevent that next time. I simply forgot to add dates when I made these! The ones I made froze well, and tasted great (and actually had a great texture once frozen- more like a truffle), but they would not have stayed on a lollipop stick upright, as suggested here. As it was, the sticks wanted to fall over rather than stay upright in the key lime balls. You can see below that the cherry vanilla ones were firmer. That's what you're going for.

Insert lollipop sticks in balls. Freeze.

While cake pops are in the freezer, mix up the white chocolate coating, described here and here.

Spoon white chocolate coating over each cake pop, and re-freeze. They won't take long, you will be able to enjoy them in about 10 minutes. They are even better the next day, after freezing overnight! Yum!

Gluten free vegan key lime waffles

Adapted/inspired by this recipe at Manifest Vegan.

Key Lime Waffles
Makes approximately 10 waffles (depends on your waffle iron)

Ingredients

• 2 cups gluten free flour mix
• 1 tsp guar gum
• 5 Tbsp raw cane sugar
• 3/4 tsp himalayan salt
• 3/4 tsp vanilla powder
• 1 tsp poppy seeds
• Zest of one key lime
• 2 Tbsp key lime juice 
• 4 Tbsp grapeseed oil
• 1 3/4 cup seltzer water

Combine gluten free flour mix, guar gum, sugar, salt, vanilla, and poppy seeds.

Add lime zest, lime juice, grapeseed oil and seltzer water. Stir to combine. Whisk to eliminate any lumps.

Cook according to the directions for your waffle iron.

Voila! Enjoy!

Note: These would be delicious topped with coconut butter, or shredded raw coconut. Key lime coconut waffles- yum!