Paneer: Part II

September is almost over!!! So much for more frequent posts. Oh well, two in a month is still more frequent than I usually am, so the goal for birthday month has been achieved. Sort of.... I'll dedicate the post to the weather which makes me want to nap instead of working. At least blogging is more productive.

Anyway, I realized that I never did a follow up post on what I made with the paneer I'd posted about a loooong time ago. So here's what I did. I cooked it with onions, tomatoes and bell peppers for some yummy Paneer Masala. Yeah, how creative is that name? Who cares about names when the food tastes great, right? Right!! Since we agree on that, let me jump straight to the recipe. Enjoy!

PS: If you made this recipe with modifications or if you usually make it in a different way, do leave a note about it.

Paneer Masala

1 cup diced paneer (diced as in medium sized chunks, not too large)
1/2 medium red onion, diced
1 medium green bell pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 to 1.5 teaspoons oil
1 bay leaf
2 pods of green cardamom
4-5 black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon ginger paste
1/2 teaspoon garlic paste
1/4 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon red chilli powder
1/2 teaspoon each of coriander and cumin powders
1 teaspoon honey
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
Optional - 1/2 teaspoon kasuri methi (dried fenugreek) 
salt, to taste

Heat the oil in a medium sized skillet or saute pan. Add the bay leaf, cardamom and peppercorns and let them sizzle for about 10 seconds. Add the onion to the pan and saute it until the onions turn pinkish. (If you're using another kind of onion, cook it until it turns translucent but don't brown it.) Now add the ginger and garlic pastes, honey, and the spice powders other than garam masala. Let it all cook for 2-3 minutes. Throw in a couple teaspoons of water if you think the spices/pastes are burning. 

Add the tomatoes and bell pepper into the pan. Cook until the tomatoes are done, about 5-6 minutes. The oil sort of separates from the tomatoes when they're done, but don't worry if it doesn't seem to. Now add the salt, garam masala and paneer. Mix well to ensure that the paneer is coated with the spices, but don't crumble it. Finally add the kasuri methi and cook for 2-3 minutes on medium to low heat.

Serve with parathas, naan or whatever other bread you fancy.

Notes:

1. It looks (and cooks) better if all the vegetables and paneer are diced to approximately the same size.

2. For those unfamiliar with kasuri methi, they're dried leaves of the fenugreek plant. Fenugreek is a commonly used green vegetable in Indian cooking. The fresh leaves have a slightly bitter, but not overpowering taste. If you don't find dried fenugreek, just leave it out....the paneer will still be tasty.

3. As always, play with the quantity of spices and find what works best for you. 

Birthday Month!!

Wow.....C&C is almost a year old!! Since it's birthday month, I'll try to do more frequent but shorter posts this month. I said try....not promising. It's a crazy time of the year work-wise, so I'll try to cut down on the rambling. The recipes and photos will still be there. :)

So yeah...doesn't feel like it has been a year at all. It's fall again! And that means pumpkin love......yup, I really can't get enough of that stuff. So dear readers, presenting my favorite pumpkin chocolate chip bread. If you don't like chocolate (what??!!), just leave it out...the bread will still be amazing.

I got the original recipes from the sources mentioned below and then played around with the flour and sugar to make it healthier and less sugary. The recipe here lists my substitutions.

Happy reading and happy baking!

PS - Blogger is acting up, so the formatting is probably an eyesore. Sorry!!!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Inspired by http://www.melskitchencafe.com/2010/10/perfect-pumpkin-chocolate-chip-bread.html and http://kirbiecravings.com/2011/10/pumpkin-bread-2.html

1 ½ cups white (all purpose) flour
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour 

2/3 cup agave nectar

1 cup (not heaping) white sugar 

2-3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1.5 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 can pumpkin puree
½ cup oil

½ cup unsweetened applesauce
4 large eggs

1/2 cup water

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or combine semi-sweet and dark chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the loaf pans.

In a large bowl, mix flours, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt together. In another bowl, whisk together canned pumpkin, applesauce, oil, eggs, agave nectar and water until well combined. Stir into dry ingredients and mix just until the dry ingredients are moistened and no dry streaks remain. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter in prepared pans. 

Bake for about 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove the bread from the oven and let sit for 10-15 minutes.  Then take them out of the baking pans and let them cool on a wire rack.

Notes:

1. You can use regular whole wheat flour instead of the ww pastry flour. Just use more white flour and less ww flour in that case.....don't change the total quantity of flour.

2. Use about 2.5 cups of granulated sugar instead of the agave-sugars mix.

3. If you don't have applesauce, use 1 cup of oil instead.

Let's try some tofu!

Helloooooo world! I am back after an uber long hiatus.....2 months. Yikes! I need to write a few blog posts in quick succession to make up for that. I am not going to bore you with long tales of how I was busy working. Let's just go on to more interesting things......food!

I would say I have pretty good memory. I remember names and faces of people I've met just once. I also remember random conversations with strangers. But when it comes to planning dinner ahead, I am that person who forgets that the chicken needs to start thawing much before you want to cook it. And don't say thaw it in the microwave.....it ends up getting half cooked! So anyway, I bought some beautiful green beans at the farmer's market to make an Asian stir fry with the beans and chicken. Aren't they nice??

Twenty minutes before starting dinner, I remembered that the chicken was in the freezer......fail! So in my search for a substitute, I thought of tofu. 

Now I am not really a huge fan of tofu. I didn't like the way it was cooked when I ate it for the first time. And being a non-vegetarian, I didn't have a reason to force myself to like vegetarian protein sources. A while ago, I made myself try some tofu that a friend had cooked. Surprise, surprise........I liked it. Since then, I've wanted to try my hand at it and I finally picked up some cubed super firm tofu at the grocery store. Yes, I'm lazy and don't want to bother with cutting up tofu. 

Anyway, I whipped a spicy tofu and green bean stir fry for dinner tonight. Don't let the spicy scare you......just leave the red pepper flakes out and that will take care of the spicy.

Spicy Tofu and Green Beans

For the tofu :
8 oz. package of extra-firm tofu
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon soy sauce
a dash of red chili sauce

For the beans/sauce :
green beans, as many as you like
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger, minced
3-4 button mushrooms, sliced
2-3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon chili sauce
1.5 teaspoons light brown sugar
1/3 cup water, chicken stock or vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon five spice powder
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon white vinegar
2 teaspoons oil
red pepper flakes, as much as you can take.....or none

If you're not using cubed tofu, chop the block up into small cubes and mix it with the other three ingredients listed above. It should look like this. Leave it aside for 20 minutes. 

In the meanwhile, trim the ends of the beans and cut them into medium sized pieces. I ended up with a little over a cup of green beans.

Heat a teaspoon of oil in a skillet or saute pan. Add the tofu and cook for about 5-6 minutes or until it is lightly browned. Take the tofu out of the pan. This is what it should look like.

Now add the remaining teaspoon of oil to the skillet. Add the ginger and garlic in and cook it for a minute or two. Add the beans and saute for 4-5 minutes. Add some of the stock/water, cover the pan and let the beans cook, about 6-7 minutes. Mix the soy sauce, chili sauce, sugar, five spice powder, pepper flakes and remaining stock/water. Add the sauce mix to the pan when the beans look about done. Let it cook for 2 minutes. Add the tofu and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms look done. Dissolve the cornstarch in a teaspoon of water and add it to the pan. Stir until the sauce starts thickening and then turn the heat off. Finally, stir in the vinegar.

Eat it with steamed rice, noodles or just by itself.

Notes :

1. With all those sauces and stocks, there's enough salt in there. Add more if you think you need it.

2. As always, customize the quantity of spices and sauces to whatever your palate can enjoy. If you follow it as is, you just might need a sweet side dish.