Get Your Food On Issue 13
Best Zucchini Fritters + Vegan Caramel Bliss Balls + Air Fryer Burnt Basque Cheesecake + "On The Go Meal Prep"
Hello friends!
Last week, I did a sneaky sneak-peek on Insta Stories and let YOU vote on which recipes you would like first. I had thousands of votes and it was pretty neck and neck for some of the recipes. The absolute winner was "Crispy Zucchini Halloumi Fritters" with over 1700 votes! And I am sharing that recipe today! Yay! I am also sharing my delicious 6-Ingredient Vegan Caramel Bliss Ball recipe and for all your people with Airfryers, there is an AirFryer Burnt Basque Cheesecake. We are also marching on with the 13th Meal Prep Session today .. lots of new things, lots of inspo for working and studying from home during lockdown!
And finally, if my meal prep sessions are helping you, I would LOVE to hear your experiences! Please keep the feedback coming, it really helps me plan more content for you! Now let's begin!
Sneh x
CRISPY ZUCCHINI HALLOUMI FRITTERS
Crispy Zucchini Halloumi Fritters with the golden fried crunch of the cheese and a perfectly cooked inside brimming with spices. Make the perfect zucchini fritter every single time with the salting and squeezing technique. This recipe makes 8 small snack-sized fritters or 4 large zucchini burgers ready to be stuffed in buns with your favourite condiments. Freezes well too!
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Salting And Squeezing Zucchini For Zucchini Fritters
Zucchinis are notorious for weeping large amounts of liquid. Recipes often call for squeezing the zucchini to remove excess liquid before using in batters. I like salting the zucchini first, just like I love salting tomatoes. Salting not only draws out the excess liquid faster but also intensifies the flavour of the vegetable. For zucchini fritters and zucchini bread recipes, salting the zucchini first and then squeezing out the liquid not only makes the zucchini nice and dry but adds a lovely subtle saltiness to the finished dish.
Grate zucchini and sprinkle with half or one teaspoon of salt. Mix it well into the grated zucchini and let the zucchini rest in a sieve over a large bowl. In ten minutes or so, your zucchini will have deflated and sagged with all the water and will be ready to squeeze. I like to move the zucchini to one side of the sieve, grab handfuls of it and squeeze over the empty side of the sieve so the liquid drains straight down to the bowl. A solid 3-4 minutes of squeezing two large zucchinis will produce almost a cup of liquid. This beautiful green zucchini juice is full of the same nutrients as the zucchini (minus the fibre) and can be drunk straight up or added to mocktails, smoothies, green juices etc.
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Shaping And Frying Zucchini Fritters
The halloumi is a great addition to this zucchini fritter as it adds a delicious saltiness to the fritter and cooks to golden perfection while retaining its shape. It also adds a good amount of protein, which is ...
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VEGAN CARAMEL BLISS BALLS
A 6-Ingredient Easy Vegan Caramel Bliss Ball recipe that will become an instant favourite! No oils, no sweeteners, no binders – this beautifully simple recipe just has dates, nuts, coconut and vanilla with a pinch of salt. And the delicate caramel flavour is absolutely divine!Â
Simple Bliss Balls That Pack An Iron And Protein Punch
In winter back in India, dates stuffed with warmed homemade ghee was a favourite mid-morning snack. I remember when I was cramming for the HSC, mum would pop into my room and leave me a bowl of ghee stuffed dates and a handful of nuts. Dates and nuts were my snack buddies and they kept me going. These bliss balls are an ode to that mid-morning study ritual. But handier and somehow more delicious.
Dates are packed with iron and fibre and nuts are full of protein. These bliss balls are purely dates and nuts with a tiny smattering of desiccated coconut for texture and vanilla for a flavour lift. I don’t like adding coconut oil to my bliss balls or vegan treats because the taste overpowers everything else. And one doesn’t need the added cholesterol (Coconut oil has been known to increase LDL – the bad cholesterol, and has six times the amount of saturated fats than other oils). In fact, if you are clever about the way you cook ...
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AIR FRYER BURNT BASQUE CHEESECAKE
The custard-like, velvet-smooth cheesecake with the burnt top, the world-famous Burnt Basque Cheesecake is one of the easiest desserts you can make. Blend 7 ingredients in a blender, pour in a cake tin and pop in the Air Fryer for just under half an hour for a decadent, delicious dessert that you will want to make again and again!
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Home learning has begun as we enter the third week of our lockdown here in Sydney. We are all working from our rooms and have different morning tea/lunch times depending on what zoom class or meeting is on. Today's meal prep is a lot of single-serve meals, grab-and-go jars of smoothies and soups, fritters, bliss balls, healthy cookies and curries with rice. This is to enable everyone to mix and match and keep themselves nourished in-between zoom sessions and hydrated after quick walks down the street.
MAINS
CHICKPEA AND SWEET POTATOÂ COCONUT KORMA CURRY (For 4 - serve with rice)
OVEN ROASTED PUMPKIN SOUPÂ (For 4 - serve with sourdough)
THAI CHICKEN LARB (For 4 - serve with fresh lettuce leaves and steamed rice)Â
EXTRAS
RAW PREP
Chopped Leek
Chopped Spring Onion
Cooked Rice
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 (1 hour 45 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 I of the meal prep, I make sure the kitchen sink is clean and empty. This allows me to quickly wash my Vitamix which is easiest to clean right after making the smoothies. I also have 10-12 300ml capacity lidded glass jars ready.
 Part IÂ
1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Cut a butternut pumpkin in half, lengthways. Place cut side up in a rimmed baking tray. Rub the top pumpkin flesh with olive oil. Pop in the oven and let it slowly roast away for an hour. (5 minutes)
2. Wash, rinse and put a batch of rice to cook in the rice cooker/on the cooktop. (2 minutes)
3. Grate and salt zucchini. Let it sit for 15 minutes to drain excess liquid. (3 minutes)
4. Peel and chop two sweet potatoes into cubes (for the curry). Drizzle with oil, season with salt and pepper. Place on a tray in the oven for 15 minutes to roast. (5 minutes)
5. Gather and prep ingredients for Happy Smoothies, Green Kiwi Bomb, Vegan Strawberry Milkshakes. (5 minutes)
6. Make Happy Smoothies (5 minutes)
7. Make Green Kiwi Bomb (5 minutes)
8. Make Vegan Strawberry Milkshake (5 minutes)
Pack away rice, roasted sweet potato, smoothies and milkshakes. 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.
Active Time -Â 35 minutes
 Part IIÂ
9. Prep the rest of the Zucchini Fritter Ingredients. Make Zucchini Fritters (15 minutes)
10. Make Chickpea Sweet Potato Coconut Korma Curry (5 minutes)
11. Gather ingredients for Vegan Caramel Bliss Balls and Vegan Choc Nut Cookies (2 minutes)
12. Make Vegan Caramel Bliss Balls (5 minutes)
13. Make Vegan Chocolate Nut Butter Cookies (5 minutes)
14. Chop leeks and spring onions (10 minutes)
Pack away chopped leek and spring onion, fritters, bliss balls and cookies.Â
Active Time -Â 45 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 Pumpkin Soup - Sauté onion, garlic, bay leaves in oil. Add roasted pumpkin flesh, fresh thyme, veg stock and seasoning. Cook for 15-20 minutes and purée. (10 Minutes)
16. Make Thai Chicken Larb (15 Minutes)
Pack away Pumpkin Soup, Chickpea Sweet Potato Coconut Korma Curry, Thai Chicken Larb.
Active Time -Â 25 minutes
" Every time you use the word ‘healthy,’ you lose. The key is to make yummy, delicious food that happens to be healthy.Â
~Â Marcus SamuelssonÂ
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!
