Get Your Food On Issue 15
Breakfast Veggie Muffins + Gujarati Sambharo + "This And That" Meal Prep
Hello friends!
Welcome to Week 15 of "Get Your Food On" - my weekly Meal Prep Newsletter! A big hello to all new subscribers. And apologies to everyone, today's newsletter is running a day late due to project deadlines and shoots this week. Our stricter lockdown in Sydney means, my online grocery orders are arriving later than usual and often things are out of stock. But hey! That's a fun challenge too, trying to meal prep with whatever is sent.
Last week, a regular reader wrote to me expressing their frustration on having to print the recipes with a million ads. I totally sympathize! I would hate that too. So I have spent the past week researching/buying a new plugin that allows me to let you print recipes without any ads/without any images. I have also notified my ad team to remove all ads from "Recipe Print" pages. Currently, only some of the recipes are on the new plugin (it is a cool one allowing you to scale the recipe up and down, like the one on this Chickpea Chaat - Recipe Page / Print Page) and I am working on converting 600+ recipes to this new system, so please bear with me. But rest assured, all Print Pages are ad-free now!
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
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NEW THIS WEEK
GOOD BREAKFAST VEGGIE MUFFINS
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These are very good breakfast veggie muffins. They are a nutrition powerhouse and packed with leek, spring onion, carrot, spinach, garlic, spelt, quinoa, oats and spices. Perfect to snack on with a dollop of mango or tomato relish! Yum!
Nutrition Packed Powerhouse Breakfast Veggie Muffins
Almost a decade ago, I put up a recipe of simple veggie muffins that I used to bake often for the boys. The muffins had the usual veggies - carrot, zucchini, spring onions and a good amount of cheese (the boys loved cheese back then!). These muffins were so popular at home and on the blog that they even made it into my cookbook and graced the cover of Daily Telegraph Sunday Home edition when our family was featured in a picnic spread. They were great for back then. But now, a new veggie muffin is on the rise. A veggie-packed, powerhouse of a muffin brimming with spices, flavour and texture. One that will quickly become a favourite in your home too!
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With the goodness of prebiotics, turmeric, spinach, spelt, oat and quinoa; this muffin covers all the bases. High in fiber, iron, protein and good fats, this Breakfast Muffin makes a really good light meal. Especially with a dollop of mango chutney or tomato relish. One could even squash it like a burger patty and stuff in some lettuce leaves for a really fresh green burger. Best of all, it is a hot favourite for adding to our this-and-that-bowl meals. It's a name we have come up for a lunch of ...
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GUJARATI SAMBHARO - SPICED INDIAN CABBAGE STIRFRY
Gujarati Sambharo is an easy Indian stirfry dish hailing from Western India. Thinly sliced cabbage, carrot and capsicum are stir-fried in a hot pan with sizzling mustard seeds, curry leaves and a bevvy of spices for a warm, al dente salad full of sweet, spicy and salty flavours.Â
A Warm Salad Is A Delicious Thing
Ayurveda not only recommends slightly warming up salads to release the energy of the vegetables but also has a lot of clever inspiration on specific vegetables that work well for this purpose. Take this cabbage stirfry for example. Cabbage is one of those vegetables that can not only be eaten raw but can be just cooked to create beautiful, textural recipes with a crunch.
In India a dry stir-fried cabbage dish often called a sabji (a vegetable dish that accompanies lentils, rice, salad, and bread as part of a complete meal) is a very popular home-style recipe. Each state has its own speciality. Like this Keralan Cabbage Thoran hailing from Southern India. The version I am sharing today comes from the Western Indian state of Gujarat where food is always vegetarian, freshly cooked every day, and has delightful sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours. This version of the cabbage stir-fry is called a Gujarati Sambharo. This is my heritage and the food I grew up with. Watching mum cook these delicious fresh veggie dishes every day ......
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Today's Meal Prep was a rush job if there was ever one! For the first time in 15 weeks, the meal prep newsletter didn't go out on Thursday. This week I have had client recipe development sessions and photoshoots every single day. Come Friday morning and I had prepped nothing and was really missing the juices/smoothies! So I decided to target super quick recipes that would become part of our "This And That Bowls" (a term we have given our meals that are like an artist's palette - just a spoonful or two of colourful, wholesome dishes on a plate to create a Nourish Bowl of this and that! I have stacks of my recipes printed by cooking time and today I was after the 10-15 minute recipes!Â
RECIPES PREPPED
VIBRANT GREEN PALAK PANEER (For 6) / Look at that colour! You will love this!
Serving suggestion - With rice/ quinoa / roti
ÂGUJARATI SAMBHARO (For 4 )Â
Serving suggestion - As a salad on the side |Â Wrap in a homemade tortilla with a piece of ginger & turmeric grilled fish/chicken/tofuÂ
ÂTOMATO EGG DROP SOUPÂ (for 4)Â
Serving suggestion - As a soup / As an Asian stew with wonton dumplings in itÂ
ÂBREAKFAST VEGGIE MUFFINS (Makes 10)
Serving suggestion - Serve on a big smear of beetroot hummus & top with poached egg and salad leaves | Heat, smash and wrap in lettuce leaves with guacamole
EXTRAS
Beetroot Tomato Juice (a heart health-boosting tonic / juice 8 large beetroot + 4 large tomatoes + 1 lemon)
Thai Spiced Almonds (Recipe in my cookbook Tasty Express)
Cooked Quinoa
Things To Do This Week (Friday)
1. Print out all the recipes you plan to cook /
Direct Print Links - Gujarati Sambharo | Breakfast Veggie Muffins |Â Rhubarb Polenta Traycake | Tomato Egg Drop Soup | Sun Juice | Happy Smoothies | Salsa Verde |
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 II 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.
>> Some essential oils bubbling away in a diffuser where you are prepping is a great mood booster.
 Part IÂ
1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C. Wash, rinse, drain a cup of quinoa. Add to a pot with 1.5 cups water and large pinch of salt. Bring to rapid boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook until done. (5 minutes)
2. Slice cabbage, carrot, capsicum for the Gujarati Sambharo. (5 minutes)
3. Chop 4 tomatoes for the soup. Salt them. (2 minutes)
4. Grate carrot, slice leek and spring onion, chop spinach for the Veggie Muffins (10 minutes)
5. Cut rhubarb and strawberries, toss in sugar in a bowl for the Traycake. Set aside. (5 minutes)
6. Cook Gujarati Sambharo (5 minutes)
7. Make Salsa Verde (5 minutes)
8. Cook the greens for the Veggie Muffins. Mix the muffin batter and pop muffins in the oven to bake. (10 minutes)
Pack away cooked quinoa, Gujarati Sambharo, Salsa Verde.
Active Time -Â 45minutes
 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 IIÂ
9. Gather and prep ingredients for Happy Smoothie, Beetroot Tomato Juice, Sun Juice (10 minutes)
10. Make Happy Smoothie (5 minutes)
11. Make Sun Juice (5 minutes)
12. Make Beetroot Tomato Juice (5 minutes)
13. Make Tomato Egg Drop Soup (5 minutes)
14. Get the muffins out of the oven. Mix the cake batter, top with rhubarb mix and pop in the oven to bake Rhubarb Polenta Traycake for an hour. (10 minutes)
Pack away juice and smoothies, soup, muffins. 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 40 minutes
 Part IIIÂ
15. Put almonds in a large skillet along with oil, spices and herbs on very low heat. Cook over a period of 30 minutes tossing occasionally until nuts are toasted (5 minutes)
16. Make Palak Paneer (15 minutes)
Pack away Thai Spiced Almonds and Palak Paneer
Active Time -Â 20minutes
FINAL CLEANUP - Refill your cuppa or glass. Wash and wipe the last bit of the prep. Make a list of all the RECIPES you have cooked and allocate days to when you will use them up.Â
Well done guys!!
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" The secret of food lies in memory – of thinking and then knowing what the taste of cinnamon or steak is.
~Â Jerry Saltz
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!
