Pomegranate Lime Mini Cheesecakes

     For day one of cooking without a working oven, I decided to make one of my favorite no-bake cheesecake recipes. Usually, I'm not a huge fan of no-bake cheesecakes because most people make them out of obscene amounts of cool whip. Instead of that calorie fest, I use one of the most useful ingredients ever, Greek yogurt. I know I use that in many of my recipes, but I just love how multi-purpose it is. At least 80% of the time, you can use vanilla as a substitute for whipped cream and plain as a substitute for mayonnaise, as long as you mix it with other stuff. For cheesecake, you obviously mix it with cream cheese, and while the consistency is much looser than any baked cheesecake, it's perfectly light for summer. I doubt that the filling would set up enough to make a good full-sized cheesecake unless you add more cream cheese, but it works really well for minis in cupcake liners.
    Although you do have to wait a couple hours for these to chill before eating them, this recipe is extremely easy and takes only about 15 to 20 minutes to prepare. I have made these many times and have garnished them with several different types of fruit on top, but my absolute favorite is pomegranate. Someday, I'm going to make a whole blog post devoted to my love of the pomegranate, but if you can't find them at the store, you can also top them with a couple of blackberries, raspberries, or tiny slices of lime.

INGREDIENTS: (makes 12 regular sized cupcake cupfuls)
12 paper cupcake liners
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1 1/3 cups vanilla or honey vanilla Greek yogurt
1 8oz block of cream cheese, softened to room temperature
juice and zest of 1 lime
2 tablespoons sugar
seeds of 1/2 pomegranate (or other garnishing fruit of your choice)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Place the cupcake liners in the pan. In a small bowl, melt the butter and mix it into the graham cracker crumbs.
2. Spoon the crust mixture evenly into each cupcake liner. You should use it all. Then use your fingers to press the crust down in even layers.

3. In another bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the softened cream cheese, yogurt, sugar, and lime juice and zest.

4. Spoon this mixture evenly into each of the cups. Try not to fill them all the way, because then they will be hart to get out of the pan.

5. If you're taking my recommendation to top them with pomegranate seeds, removing them from the fruit can be tricky (and messy). I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with pomegranates, and I'm going to make it my mission to change that. I have seen people  cut the pomegranate in quarters and float them in a bowl of water. Apparently that's supposed to make the seeds come right out, so if you want to try that, let me know how it works. Personally, I enjoy taking my time to pick the seeds out by hand. Sure, it takes a couple minutes and your hands will turn pink, but I think it's one of life's simple pleasures. Sometimes, I just snack on pomegranates and sit there leisurely picking out the seeds and eating them. Anyway, I digress. So step 5 is to cut the pomegranate in half and remove the seeds.

6. Sprinkle a few pomegranate seeds on top of each mini cheesecake cup. The refrigerate them for at least 4 hours before serving. They're actually even better the next day.

Enjoy! And remember to check back every day for more goodies!