Palaak Paneer

This is my personal favorite. Spinach, cheese, and yum!




Source: Recipezaar.com, recipe 25348

Yield: 6 servings, 4 weight watchers points each (not so bad!)

Ingredients
2 (5 ounce) bags baby spinach
1 large onion
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped tomato
3 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces paneer cheese, cut into cubes
1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions
1. Cut spinach into shreds and cook in 3 tablespoons water until tender; remove from heat.
2. Saute onion, cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger in 1-2 tablespoons ghee or oil until onion is translucent.
3. Then add garlic and chopped tomatoes, and reduce heat.
4. Cook this briefly and slowly blend in yogurt a little at a time to prevent curdling.
5. Add coriander, garam masala, paprika, and salt, mixing well.
6. Add cooked spinach with liquid, cover and simmer on low heat for approximately 20-30 minutes.
7. Remove from heat.
8. Take half of spinach mixture and puree in food processor or blender, and return to mixture and stir.
9. Slowly stir in heavy cream, and heat through on low heat.
10. Add paneer cubes.
11. Serve.

Gobi 65

Source: Shyam was pretty sure he knew how to make this one off the top of his head but pulled up a recipe for reference just to be safe. http://www.indobase.com/recipes/details/gobi-65.php

Ingredients:

• 1 Big flower cauliflower
• 2 tbsp Corn starch
• 1 tbsp Rice flour
• 2 tsp Gram flour
• 2 tbsp Maida
• 1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
• 2 tsp Chili powder
• 2 tsp Soy sauce
• 1 tsp Ginger garlic paste
• Saffron Color
• 1 Pinch baking soda
• 2 Pinch ajinomoto
• Oil for frying
• Salt to taste
• Water as required


How to make Gobi 65:
• Wash and cut the vegetable into small flower.
• Heat a sauce full of water and bring it to a boil.
• Drop the cauliflowers and cook them.
• Now remove them from the heat and pat it dry.
• Add ginger garlic paste, gram flour, corn flour, rice flour, maida, soysauce, turmeric powder, baking soda, chili powder, saffron, ajinomoto and salt, mix well.
• Take a pan and heat oil and cook the vegetable until golden brown.

Points per the recipe above - 10 per serving if recipe is divided 6 ways
If you don't fry it, it cuts the points to 1 per serving (bake the cauliflower after dipping in spices)

Hyderabadi Biryani

We're having a group of about 20 friends from my mom's group over for dinner Sunday and serving Indian fare. It wouldn't be complete if we didn't serve biryani, a dish for which Shyam's hometown of Hyderabad is famous. I wouldn't exactly call this healthy, but we'll tag it as Indian and I will calculate the weight watchers points since myself and several of the moms in our group are following the plan.


The recipe below is taken from the book 'A Princely Legacy: Hyderabadi Cuisine' by Prathiba Karan. We've made it in the past, and while it's more labor intensive than using a jump start spice packet from the store, the flavor is rich and well worth it!

The common but much talked about Hyderabadi biryani is splendid in taste and in a way, an articulation of the Hyderabadi ethos and personality.

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Marination time: 2 hours
Cooking time: 45 minutes
Serves: 8

Ingredients
1 kg mutton or other meat (mix of chops, bones with meat, etc)
1/2 kg long grain rice
4 onions, finely sliced
1 teaspoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon garlic paste
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 bunch fresh green coriander, chopped
1 small bunch of fresh green mint, chopped
4 green chillies, chopped

Spice Mix 'A'
4 cardamoms
6 cloves
1/2" cinnamon stick
1 teaspoon caraway seeds
1/2 teaspoon peppercorn


2 cups yoghurt
1/2 cup milk
a large pinch of saffron
juice of 2 lemons
6 green cardamoms
8 cloves
2 bay leaves
1" cinnamon stick
2/3 cup oil
2 tablespoons ghee
salt to taste

Directions:
Wash the meat and drain all the water.

Heat oil. Fry the onions till golden brown. When the onions become cool, crush or grind them. Set aside.

Rub ginger and garlic well into the meat. Then add salt, red chilli powder, half of coriander and mint and green chillies, lemon juice, and ground spices in 'A', the crushed onions and the oil in which the onions were fried. Leave to marniate for about 2 hours.

Soak saffron in milk and keep aside.

Take heavy-bottomed pan. Put in the marinated meat with the marinade. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Cover and cook over medium slow heat till the meat is tender and the liquids are not fully dried up.

Simultaneously, wash rice. Boil about 8 glasses of water. Add the whole cardamoms, cloves, bay leaves and the cinnamon stick to the water and a little salt and rice. Parboil rice. Drain out all the water and spread the rice in a flat dish.

Now take another heavy-bottomed pan. Brush the bottom liberally with ghee. Place half the parboiled rice in a layer at the bottom. Cover the layer with the cooked meat. Cover the meat with the balance of rice. Sprinkle the saffron milk over the rice. Also sprinkle the remaining coriander, mint and green chillies. Dot it with ghee. Cover tightly and cook over slow fire till the rice is fully cooked and the fragrances blend. Take care to see that when the rice is cooked, each grain stands out separately and the rice under no circumstances is allowed to get mushy.

Gently take out the rice and meat, without mixing the two and serve steaming hot.

18 Weight Watchers Points for each of 8 servings. Ouch. An occasional treat, for sure.

Shift in direction....

I originally started the blog as a repository for the recipes of things I actually COULD eat. In December 2009, I stopped nursing Rohit and no longer experienced the symptoms that had prompted me to cut milk, wheat and sugar from my diet.

Candida diet aside, we still love cooking - both Shyam and I. So, why not have a place to document some of our favorites?

We hope any readers enjoy these dishes just as much as we do. For now, I'm not really publicizing the blog - it's really for us, an online recipe recepticle. Maybe someday!