Lime & Strawberry Cheesecake

C

With Christmas around the corner and Strawberries in Season (in New Zealand) this makes the perfect dairy free dessert and I just LOVE cheesecake!!!

Makes about 8 ramekins

Crust:
1 1/2 cups Walnuts
1/3 cup Desiccated Coconut
1/2 cup pitted Medjool dates
¼ tsp celtic sea salt

Filling:
3 cups raw cashews that have been soaked for at least 4 hours or overnight if you have the time.
3/4 cup lime juice, freshly squeezed
3/4 cup honey, maple syrup or coconut nectar
1 tsp pure vanilla powder or the seeds of a whole vanilla bean
3/4 cup melted coconut oil
1 cup Fresh Strawberries

Topping:
1/3 cup Medjool Dates
3/4 cup Strawberries

Directions:

1. Line your ramekin dishes with cling film so once they are frozen they will be easy to remove from the ramekin!

2. Place nuts, dates, coconut and salt in a food processor and pulse until mixure resembles a crumb like texture. Scoop out crust mixture into your ramekin dishes and press nice and firm.

3. In your high speed blender (I use the Optimum 9400), place soaked cashews, lime juice, honey, coconut oil and vanilla and blend on high for a couple of minutes, it should be nice and smooth. 

4. Pour about 1/2 of the mixture onto of the base into the ramekins, just less than half full.

5. Add the Fresh Strawberries to the rest of the filling and blend on high. Fill up the ramekins to almost full.

6. For the topping, blend 3/4 cup Fresh Strawberries and 1/4 cup of Medjool Dates and blend on high until silky smooth. Pour a thin layer over the strawberry filling to finish the cheesecake!

6. Place in freezer until solid.

7. Remove from the freezer about 15-30 minutes before serving or if you are like me you might prefer to eat it when it's still frozen!

*Optional: Add Lime Zest for a little more zing to the lime filling!

Optimum 9400 Review!

I have found my new love!!!!!! Welcome to the Family Optimum 9400 :D

I've officially entered into the world of the High Speed Blender....known as The Optimum 9400 a.k.a Froothie! I was so excited for this little gem to arrive that I might have gotten a little too excited when the courier dropped it off! Carefully unpacking my new blender in anticipation, I was just in awe of how beautiful this blender is and it was love at first sight!

Isn't she just the prettiest, the shiny black finish is like a classic car and the hand dials and switches reminds me of a vintage radio, this my lovelies is my new favourite kitchen appliance and I am happy to display her in my kitchen for all to see! 

I have definitely had my fair share of blenders in my life, I had a cheap and nasty one that didn't last long and then I shelled out a couple of hundred for what seemed like a more sturdy one that was a great blender when I first bought it several years ago but has since lost it's seals so it leaks like a sieve.  It's not high powered enough to even break down a banana unless you let it blend for 3 or 4 minutes and by that time it's leaked so much that half of my smoothie was on the bench :(

Since my discovery of green smoothies and more plant based food I thought it was time for an upgrade. I looked into the Nutri-bullet and through searching reviews on that I found Froothie! The reviews on this blender absolutely blew me away and I knew immediately I wanted one and would love to be part of the Froothie revolution.  So I have become a Froothie Ambassador and I will be doing a series of recipes with this amazing machine that you can look forward in the months to come.

There are certainly your fair share of blenders out there and I think if you are using a generic blender or a Bullet for your smoothies and it's working then it's helping you on the path to a healthier you and that is the the most important thing. However, for those interested in something that can do so much more than just a standard blender or a bullet will ever do then listen up as to why the Optimum 9400 will probably change your life!

The blades are commercial grade, they can even blend paving stones into dust in just seconds!!! Now I don't imagine your or I will ever be grinding up rocks but it just goes to show how powerful this motor is at 2238 watts, 3 horsepower and 44,000 rpm, that's some serious power right there.

This blender while extremely powerful is a lot quieter than any other blender device I've ever used, it feels so smooth and seamless yet it blends ice and frozen fruit with ease in seconds, no little bits left floating around your smoothie!

I really love the pulse function as it ensures you won't "over process" your foods especially for making nut flours. One of my favourite design features is the rubber cushion pad, it's easy to line up, no little arrows or locking techniques that can be very annoying!

So I've had my Froothie for a couple of weeks now and I am rather impressed, I've made soups, nut butters, dressings, almond milk and plenty of smoothies! I noticed that I am using it daily, if not a couple times a day! Clean up is a breeze, you just squirt some detergent with some warm water then blend and boom it's clean!!!

In terms of price I think it is really affordable, while many of the commercial blenders like the Vitamix will set you back at least $1,000 which I'm sure is worth it, I don't imagine most people will spend that much on a blender. The Opimum range starts at $325, this one I'm reviewing is $499.

Powerful Industrial High Speed 2,238 watt Motor!
5 Year Domestic Warranty!
Precision High, Med, Low & Pulse Functions
Heat-Resistant Polycarbonate Jug (BPA Free) - Wet & Dry Applications
Approved by FDA, UL and the European Commission for Food Safety
30 Day Money Back Guarantee!
State of the art Two in One Stainless Steel 6-blade cutting assembly - Crushes ice, nuts and fruits in seconds

This Froothie Machine is so incredibly versatile!!! 

You can make:

Raw Desserts, Ice Cream and Frozen Fruit - Use the tamper to make homemade ice-cream with frozen berries, banana, mango etc..
Green Smoothies, Fruit Smoothies, Fresh fruit juice and Cocktails - it will easily blend unpeeled and uncut whole fruits and vegetables so you don't loose all the fiber.
Nut Butters, Nut Flour, Nut Milk
Hot Soups - the blender will heat your soup through friction heat (5-7 minutes)
Spreads and dips, chunky or silky smooth!

Just a wee recipe for this green smoothie that I love! It's so refreshing :D

1/2 cup coconut cream

1/2 cup coconut water

1 whole green apple, core and all
Handful of spinach
1/2 frozen banana
1/4 avocado
1 lime, peeled

Handful of Ice!

Please note I was provided with a Froothie Optimum 9400 as part of my role as brand ambassador and this post contains affiliate links, if you make a purchase through Primal Journey then I will receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!  If you’d like to know more about Froothie or this machine in particular, please visit the Froothie website for more details.

Beer Crate Gardens

I swear I've turned into a domestic goddess since we bought our first house, I have discovered a love of growing my own herbs and vegetables and I have even started growing my first Rose!!!

Hubby built me a couple of really large garden beds which have been wonderful for growing Broccoli, Swiss Chard, perpetual spinach and tuscan Kale through the winter and my herb planter boxes have been growing coriander, italian parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary, garlic chives and pineapple sage.

Now that it's spring I have planted some cos lettuce, butter crunch lettuce, celery, bok choy, more swiss chard, yellow courgette (zucchini) capsicum and chillies.  I ran out of room in my garden beds so I decided to use beer crates after seeing them on Instagram, I planted snow peas, strawberries and a whole lot of herbs, lemongrass, sage, basil, spicy basil, coriander and parsley.

So to make the beer crate gardens I used a good quality polythene (Mitre10) and used a staple gun to line them, don't forget to cut plenty of holes in the bottom for drainage!

The bottle store sells these for $6.90 each and they usually make you take the empty bottles with you, suffice to say we probably looked like alcoholics with the 6 bags full of pints I left out for the recycling today ;) 

These are my Red Dublin Bay roses which I am very proud of! I have never grown a rose in my life and thankfully these are very hardy! They will climb much bigger than this so I will need to sort out some trellis for them to climb up :D

Any gardening tips are very much appreciated for this newbie ;) Do you garden and what sort of things do you plant?