Get Your Food On Issue 12
Chocolate Apricot Marble Loaf + Aloo Tikki (Indian Potato Patties) + "Use Up Things" Meal Prep
Hello friends!
Today is the 12th Issue of "Get Your Food On " - my weekly meal prep newsletter. That means I have sent out 11 newsletters with lots of meal prep info and inspiration. It also means I have been religiously meal prepping for 11 weeks. That is almost 3 months! And I can tell you confidently, that we as a family are eating MORE VARIETY, MAKING HEALTHIER CHOICES, HAVE UPPED OUR FRUIT & VEG INTAKE and RECLAIMED A COUPLE OF EVENINGS during the week by not worrying about what to make for dinner and have the time to sit and browse cookbooks or Netflix!
Now, your turn! Have these newsletters helped you? Did you meal prep during the past few weeks? Did you adopt all/part of the schedule I send out? I would LOVE to hear your experiences! So, please keep the feedback coming, it really helps me plan more content for you! Now let's start cooking! I have LOTS OF NEW RECIPES for you this week ..
Sneh x
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Another beautiful, sturdy loaf to add to the Sturdy Loaf Appreciation Club – this Chocolate Apricot Marble Loaf is as delicious as it is fun! Marble cakes are delightful and bring a child-like glee to the cake table and this loaf is no exception. Not only do you get two delicious flavours in one but the joy you feel as you slice into a marble loaf, revealing the swirls inside is just amazing!
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The Sturdy Loaf Appreciation Club
Are you a member? Do you love cakes that are baked as loaves. Loaves that stand tall and proud and have sharp angles. Ones that are easy to bake and easy to take and can be toasted if you so fancy, with butter. In recent years, I have forgone round cakes almost completely (except if they are for a birthday) and have resorted to baking loaves out of all my cake recipes. It is utterly convenient and easy to portion and serve. You must absolutely try it.
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Today’s recipe is an old favourite and adapted from Trine Hahnemann’s Scandinavian Baking cookbook. Trine talks about her fondness for stale cakes, cakes that are a day or two old. These cakes often baked with butter, toughen to an almost sourdough consistency in the cold weather and are robust enough to dunk in your coffee if you have managed to save them for three days or so. This Chocolate Apricot Marble Loaf has been given a citrus twist. I have also reduced the sugar from the original recipe. I love how lemon ....
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ALOO TIKKI - INDIAN POTATO PATTIES
This is my recipe for a basic Aloo Tikki – a spiced Indian Potato Patty served with fresh green chutney. The Indian counterpart of a hash brown, the famous Aloo Tikki is a favourite snack served with chai. Also used as a base for many street style chaat recipes, hot aloo tikkis are topped with chickpea curry, salad veggies and sweet and sour chutneys for a delicious meal.
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Aloo Tikki – The Indian Counterpart To The Hash Brown
The premise is simple. Boil and mash some potatoes, add stale bread and spices. Mix, shape and fry for a delicious golden chai-time snack. This is the everyday version of the famous Aloo Tikki, a snack very common in Indian homes. It is hard to resist golden fried potato in any form really. But when you spice it up with chilli and ginger and chat masala and serve it up with a big bowl of fresh green chutney, it becomes irresistible.
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Mum used to give stale bread a super quick dunk in a bowl of water to soften it. It was then squeezed till very dry, torn into tiny pieces and added to the boiled potato as a binder. This method although effective in India I grew up in decades ago, (maybe it was the fact that bread was more authentic and baked with only a handful of ingredients?) is quite hit and miss now depending on what bread you use. Sometimes, the bread is so soft (probably the use of emulsifiers) that it completely disintegrates when you dunk it in water.
But, I have found a very effective method. I just make ...
Today's meal prep was born out of the need to "Use Up Things". I had ordered way too much bread from the local bakery to meet my $40 order limit in order to get home delivery (because of lockdown!). I also had too many heads of cabbage and too many potatoes and tomatoes (incorrect ordering on my part). So, I grabbed my pen-paper-weighing scale and started recipe developing with the ingredients I needed to use up.
With the crazy amount of sourdough (baguette and panini), I made croutons. Three jars of Croutons (one basic Sourdough Croutons, one Garlic Sourdough Croutons and one Pizza Sourdough Croutons). I have a detailed post with all 3 recipes hitting the blog tomorrow along with a foolproof method of getting the crispiest croutons. These were a massive hit. I had to swat people away from the jars because I needed to photograph them but they were too hard to resist by these people that live in my home.Â
With the tomatoes, I made an incredibly delicious Oven Roasted Tomato Garlic & Saffron Soup. The potatoes got boiled and mashed and cooked into Aloo Tikkis. The Cabbage got chopped for my Asian Stir-Fry veggie prep and a delicious Spiced Sweet & Sour Cabbage Stir-Fry (Gujarati Sambharo, a delicious healthy everyday dish that I grew up with). This meal prep has FIVE NEW RECIPES (two were published today and the rest will be published by tomorrow and day after).Â
MAINS
Cauliflower Vodka Pasta Sauce (For 4 - serve with pasta)
Turmeric Daal (For 4 - serve with rice)
Oven Roasted Tomato Garlic & Saffron Soup (For 2 - serve with croutons or sourdough)Â
Spiced Sweet & Sour Cabbage Stir-Fry (Gujarati Sambharo (For 4 - serve with rice/rotis/daal)Â
EXTRAS
Croutons - 3 Ways
RAW PREP
Asian Stir-Fry Veggies
Boiled Potatoes
Things To Do This Week (Thursday & Friday)
1. Print out all the recipes you plan to cook
2. Make a shopping list of things you don't already have and buy them before the weekend.
WEEKEND MEAL PREP SESSION (2 hours 2 minutes)
>> Before you begin, get a large plastic/enamel tub to catch all your scraps and rubbish (multiples if you are saving scraps for chooks/compost). I cannot stress how much time you will save and keep the bench tidy if you are not going to the rubbish bin every few minutes.
>> For Part II of the meal prep, I make sure the kitchen sink is clean and empty. This allows me to quickly wash my Breville juicer and Vitamix which is easiest to clean right after making the juice/smoothies and hummus. I also have 7-8 300ml capacity lidded glass jars ready.
Part IÂ
1. Put a 6-8 large potatoes to boil (1 minute)
2. Pre-heat oven to 200°C. (1 minute)
3. Make fresh Breadcrumbs. (2 minutes)
4. Cut stale sourdough into bite-sized cubes. Put 250g sourdough cubes each in 3 bowls. Add seasonings/flavourings to the bowl along with olive oil.  (5 minutes)
5. Chop tomato, fennel, onion and peel garlic for the soup tray that will go in the oven. (5 minutes)
6. Bake croutons one tray at a time (10 minutes)
7. Gather and prep all ingredients for Cauliflower Vodka Pasta Sauce (5 minutes)
8. Gather ingredients for Sun Juice and Salted Caramel Banana Smoothie (5 minutes)
Pack away croutons, peel potatoes (reserve 2 for Aloo Tikki and pack the rest away)
Active Time -Â 35 minutes
Part IIÂ
9. Make Sun Juice. (10 minutes)
10. Make Salted Caramel Banana Smoothie (5 minutes)
11. Place tomato-fennel-onion tray in the oven to roast for 40 minutes (1 minutes)
12. Make Cauliflower Vodka Pasta Sauce (10 minutes)
13. Make Dough for Aloo Tikki (5 minutes)
14. Make Aloo Tikki (10 minutes)
Pack away juice and smoothie in glass jars. The actual juice and smoothies only take a couple of minutes to make but I am allowing time for clean-up and washing of the appliances. I use my Breville Juice Maker to extract the cold-pressed juice and my Vitamix to make the smoothies. Pack away Cauliflower Vodka Pasta Sauce and Aloo Tikki.
Active Time -Â 40 minutes
BREAK 10 minutes - Time for a break. Make yourself a cup of tea/coffee or pour a glass of wine. I like to load the dishwasher, put away ingredient jars and wipe down the counter at this point to reduce my work later.Â
Part IIIÂ
15. Make Green Chutney (5 Minutes)
16. Make Turmeric Daal (10 Minutes)
17. Make Tomato Garlic & Saffron Soup from the tray of roasted veggies. (10 minutes)
18. Slice 5-6 hard veggies thinly for your Asian Stir Fry mix. Today, I have used green cabbage, purple cabbage, carrot, snow peas, onion and green capsicum. Mix well in a bowl and pack away in glass containers for the fridge to be used in stir-fries. Will keep for 3-4 days. (10 minutes)
19. Make Spiced Sweet & Sour Cabbage Stir-Fry (5 minutes)
Pack away Green Chutney, Turmeric Daal, Tomato Soup, Asian Veggie Mix, Spiced Sweet & Sour Cabbage Stir-Fry.
Active Time -Â 40 minutes
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I have limited copies of my cookbook Tasty Express - a labour of love filled with over 100 of our family's most tried and tested and exciting 30-minute recipes inspired by street foods of the world. Mostly Vegetarian recipes that go from breakfast to quick dinners in a heartbeat. They make great gifts for you or a friend!
