Cooking & Meal Prep Session 7
Spinach Daal + Oven Baked Thai Chicken Curry + Full 3-Day Meal Prep
Hello to my new subscribers and old friends!
I have FIVE brand new recipes for you this week and a fun meal prep that I did earlier today over 2 hours. I am finally sharing the recipe for my family's Spinach Daal, a great nourishing weeknight meal option that is gentle on your tummy and full of health benefits (did you know Ayurveda states that Spinach can be warming when cooked and cooling when raw?). This recipe is at least 30 years old and I have shared "our story" (Nick and me from teen to adulthood) and the journey of this daal. The other recipe is for an Oven Baked Thai Green Chicken Curry with my homemade Thai Green Curry Paste (you want this!! it is incredible) and finally some recipes for "Sun Juice", "Happy Smoothie" and "Tropical Green Smoothie" that you will love.
And for meal prep - A simpler structure for all you newbies who can't wait to get your hands dirty with prepping the Cook Republic way. So, Let's Start!
SPINACH DAAL (LENTIL & SPINACH STEW)
This Spinach Daal is a deeply personal recipe. One from my mum’s stash of recipes, it is what I grew up on. Creamy luscious yellow lentils dotted with rich dark green wilted spinach leaves ladled over fluffy white rice as warming notes of cumin and chilli filled the air. A simple homestyle vegan lentil daal (stew) that is utterly nourishing and life-giving in more ways than one. Over three decades, it has traveled from India to Australia and is beginning its journey onward yet again. This is its story.Â
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A Journey From Teenage Years To Adulthood Deep-Rooted In Asian Culture
The concept of initiating into adulthood and independence has always been very different in India and probably a lot of countries in South East Asia. My journey from child to teen and then into an adult was measured by my ability to help out, do chores and eventually cook meals for my family. That was the notion of independence – learning all the skills required to run a household without a hitch. Deep-rooted life skills that got imbibed by watching and mirroring my mum. Things I would’ve never learned anywhere else because they were personal and unique to our family and created a primer for me to pass on a piece of that uniqueness to my own family someday.
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Daals and rotis were the first things I learned to cook in my mum’s kitchen. As I got older, my rotis got more perfect and round and my daals developed that seasoned taste that comes from cooking the same thing a hundred times over.
Like all good Indian children, I lived with my parents until the day I got married. As did my best friend, Nick. When we got married, we left the country that was our home for twenty-three years with two suitcases burgeoning with everything we owned, to make a new life in Singapore and then eventually in Australia.
Fresh-faced and clueless about the real ways of the world, this newfound independence was exhilarating and terrifying .......
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OVEN BAKED THAI GREEN CHICKEN CURRY
There is nothing more satisfying than a curry that pretty much bakes itself in the oven. This Oven Baked Thai Green Chicken Curry recipe is not only super delicious but a lifesaver. Plus it smells and tastes exactly like the curries at the restaurant with the addition of all those perfectly roasted golden, caramelized bits. It is made with easy-to-find ingredients and the paste can be made ahead and stored in the fridge.
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Instant Homemade Thai Green Curry Paste
This recipe is a slightly simplified version of my authentic Thai Green Curry Paste. It has eliminated some key components like belachan (shrimp paste) and galangal which are quite hard to find on a whim. Simplifying the recipe to include easily sourced everyday ingredients makes this curry more approachable and a regular in the cooking roster rather than only reserved for special occasions. The ingredients you see in the picture below are easily available year-round in Australia – fresh garlic, ginger, turmeric, coriander root and stalk, eschalot, lemongrass and kaffir lime (makrut) leaves. And they are essential to that authentic Thai green curry taste. ...
I love making curries from the entire South-East Asia region and to remedy the easy availability of herbs and spices, I have planted a lot of very useful trees in my garden. Kaffir lime (makrut), Thai Basil, Vietnamese Mint, Lemongrass (that grows in giant clumps), Bay leaf, fresh root ginger and turmeric, curry leaf and of course chillies. But I also keep a well-stocked spice drawer and shelf that houses more than 100 varieties of spice and mixes. And my most prized are the .....
I had a lot of messages from you guys .. some of you followed last week's meal prep and cooked everything (well done you guys!) and a lot of you wanted a meal plan that simplified things a bit. So today's meal prep will focus on "3 Days of meals" rather than a whole week with the theme being "Feeding hungry kids/adults on the move". I often adopt this style when I am working, so I have meals ready for 3 days and at the end of that 3-day period, I can meal prep again for the rest of the week.Â
The Banana Muffins are a great lunchbox item, the Green smoothies are really good after-school with a snack and the Happy smoothies are mood-enhancing and energy-giving after a soccer session/post-gym/post-run. The Sun Juice is full of immunity-boosting ingredients to keep you supercharged in the cold weather.
THREE MEALS
Spinach Daal (serve with steamed rice or crusty bread and a salad)
Breakfast/ After School Snacks
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 juicer and Vitamix which is easiest to clean right after making the juice/smoothies.
Part I
1. Make Sun Juice. This has carrot, orange, lemon, ginger and fresh turmeric. Wash, peel and juice. (15 minutes)
2. Make Green Pineapple Smoothie. This has spinach, pineapple, avocado, lime. Wash, peel, cut and blend. (10 minutes)
3. Make Happy Smoothie (10 minutes)
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.Â
Active Time -Â 35 minutes
Now turn on the oven (pre-heat to 200°C) and put a kettle of water to boil.
Part II
4. Put on a pot of quinoa (5 minutes)
5. Make Pickled Onion (10 Minutes)
6. Make A Double Batch Of Thai Pesto. Fill half in a jar for the fridge and half in a large bowl. (10minutes)
7. Soak 100g glass noodles in a bowl in boiling water for a minute. Rinse, drain and refresh several times in cold water. Spiralize Zucchini. (10 minutes)
8. Make Zucchini Noodles and pack them away in a glass container for the fridge.
Active Time -Â 35 minutes
Part III
9. Mix and Put Banana Muffins to bake in the oven. (10 minutes)
10. Put on a pot of Spinach Daal To Cook. (10 minutes)
11. Chop onion, grate beetroot and make the mix for the Beetroot Burgers. Pack away in a glass container for the fridge or roll them into burger shapes and pack away, ready to be cooked when you need them. (15 minutes)
Active Time - 35 minutes
Things To Do With This Pot Of Cooked Quinoa (over the next couple of days, I will expand this pot of quinoa into full meals by just spending 10-15 minutes before each meal)
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!
