3 easy plant-based recipes - enjoy an acai and cherry smoothie bowl, vegan veg and cheese and mini choc chip muffins.
We’ve had some fun creating 3 delicious plant-based recipes for a collaboration between Vitamix and Coconut Bowls and we think you will enjoy them too. We decided that rather than popping them solely onto our content-hungry Instagram feed and them disappearing into the ether after a week, that we’d share them in this blog post so they can keep being made.
The Coconut bowls and Vitamix GIVE AWAY is live between the 21st of July and the 3rd of August 2020 – good luck!
The 3 easy Healthy Twists recipes that we created for them are;
Fruity acai and cherry bowl
As the recipes were to be shot in coconut bowls and made using a blender, we had to have a smoothie bowl recipe, so we went with a favourite combination of ours – an acai and cherry smoothie bowl.
Creamy vegan veg and cheese
This is a really handy vegan creamy cheese sauce that’s a great base to add to any pasta or vegetable dish. The sauce is also easy to freeze.
Seriously cute mini chocolate chip muffins
Our kids love a mini muffin, particularly if the recipe is easy and can be made in one bowl and let’s face it, we do too.
To be upfront about this post we purchased and had used a Vitamix Ascent 3500i in the Healthy Twists kitchen for a couple of years and it’s a workhorse! It’s used every day by all the family and to help make many of our recipes. But they aren’t a cheap piece of kit so when Coconut Bowls asked us if we’d like to join a collaboration with themselves and Vitamix in exchange for a 2nd Vitamix Ascent 3500i, along with the blender cups and bowls, we thought that a Vitamix for Sarah’s home kitchen might be rather handy – particularly through lockdown when we had to stay apart.
A deliciously creamy plant-based sauce – perfect for stirring through pasta and vegetable dishes.
Ingredients
Scale
Sauce
200g cashew nuts, soaked overnight
200ml unsweetened almond milk
4 tbsps. nutritional yeast
1 tsp. mustard powder
80g vegan cheese, grated
Pinch of salt
Few twists of black pepper
80g pasta of choice
½ medium leek, sliced
8 spears tender stem broccoli
100g frozen peas, defrosted
1 courgette, sliced
Extra unsweetened almond milk
Instructions
Weigh out the cashew nuts into a bowl and cover with cold water. Cover and leave to soak overnight or for a minimum of 4 hours.
Once the cashew nuts have soaked, drain and rinse in cold water and add them to a Vitamix blender. Now add the vegan cheese, nutritional yeast, mustard powder, ground pepper, salt and pour in the plant-based milk. Blend until you have a smooth creamy sauce, then set to one side.
Meanwhile, cook your chosen pasta according to the instructions on the packet. Lightly pan fry the leeks, courgettes and peas.
In a medium pan on the hob add the pasta, vegetables and spoon over half of the vegan cheese sauce. Gently heat and stir the sauce through, you may wish to add some more liquid to thin the sauce. Heat until hot and serve immediately.
Any remaining sauce can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days or frozen.
These easy to make mini choc chip muffins are a tasty fun treat.
Ingredients
Scale
100 ml plant-based milk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
35g cashew or almond butter
50g golden caster sugar
70g gluten-free flour or plain flour
35g almonds
45g dark chocolate chunks
½ – 1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Small pinch of salt
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 170°C fan and line a mini muffin tray with 14 muffin cases.
In a small bowl measure out the plant-based milk and stir in the apple cider vinegar and set to one side for 5 minutes, until it curdles.
Add the almonds to a Vitamix blending bowl and slowly blend until ground into a rough flour.
In another mixing bowl add the nut butter and sugar and stir together. Then add all the remaining ingredients, including the ground almonds and stir together. Pour in the plant-based milk and apple cider vinegar and stir through.
Spoon the mix evenly between the mini muffin cases and bake in the oven on the middle shelf for 13 minutes until lightly golden on top.
Remove the muffins from the oven and place on a cooling rack for 5 minutes before removing from the muffin tray. Then leave the muffins to cool completely.
Store in an airtight container and eat within 2-3 days.
