Indian Food

I love the weekend. It gives me the time that I need to experiment and test out really elaborate dinners. Tonight, I went with Indian food. This is because the farm I get my yogurt from – Sidehill Farm (http://www.sidehillfarm.net, Paul usually sells at the market.  It is wonderful to meet the farmer that raised and made the product you’re purchasing, plus, the yogurt is only $3.99/container at the market, and Whole Foods sells it for a dollar more.  That’s a dollar I’d rather save for Paul and Amy!)  – has been selling home grown/made paneer at the farmers’ market for the past few weeks…and I decided I needed to try and make Palak Paneer.

In addition to the paneer I purchased, I also bought a loaf of “San Francisco” sourdough french style bread, some purple potatoes, yellow potatoes, radishes, and tomatoes from Simple Gifts Farm, and then a peck of Macoun apples, one and a half of McIntosh apples, and a peck of Red Bartlett pears from my favorite orchard guy at the market.  I don’t even know what his farm is called, but, he uses these small baskets that his father made and used and they’re unique and lovely.  He has the best fruit and the best prices at the market.  Plus, he always throws in something extra for me – usually a different type of apple, maybe a few plums, or even a peach.  It’s great.  I decided I’m making apple butter this weekend.  The apple butter batch will conclude my “jamming session” for the season.  Jamming session has included strawberry jam (from berries Paul and I hand picked at our CSA), strawberry rhubarb jam (berries picked by us, rhubarb from the farmer’s market), cinnamon plum jam (plums from the orchard man), plum and pear jam (plums from the orchard man, Bartlett pears from Atkins farm)…and it should likely end with apple butter.  Unless I decide to make pumpkin butter.  Which is highly probable.  Anyways…

I came to the realization that I love any kind of food that I can scoop up and eat with some kind of bread.  Love it.  I enjoy Moo Shi/Shu Vegetable with rice pancakes (Amherst Chinese has the best version – I have not yet attempted rice pancakes), fajitas and tacos, and all types of Indian bread with sambals and dals.  Another delicious dish is the Moroccan Ragout at the Medici (http://www.medici57.com).  Mmmm.  Yum.

Anyhow…Palak Paneer is one of my favorite “Indian food” recipes. With the bounty from Sidehill Farm, I figured I would try it.  I also have been dying to try making naan.  I’ve made chapattis numerous times, but never naan – a yeasted Indian flat bread.  I also wanted a protein and some more veggies, so I made a black lentil dal and a roasted vegetable compilation as I ran out of stove top burners.

Recipes used:

Whole Wheat Naan: http://www.monsoonspice.com/2009/04/whole-wheat-naan-for-healthier-me.html (Monsoon Spice has a wonderful blog, check it out!)

Palak Paneer: http://www.currydishes.com/indian-recipes/palak-paneer-recipe.html (I omitted the butter and used 1 T cream)

Dal Makhani: http://www.recipezaar.com/Dal-Makhani-Spicy-Black-Lentils-195571 (I omitted the cream and reduced the butter)

Curry Vegetables: I had planned to make this on the stove top and nice and saucy, but I ran out of burners, so I adjusted for the oven.  I winged it using what I had in the fridge from our CSA (Riverland Farms).

Recipe:

1 carrot, diced
1 scallion, chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped
4 small parsnips, chopped
1 t ginger, 1 t cumin, 1/2 t fenugreek, 1/2 t galangal, salt and pepper to taste

Drizzle olive oil in a pan, add veggies, roast at 350F for up to 30 mins or until tender.

From start to finish, everything took 3 hours.  Not all of that time was “active,” as the bread took 2 hours to rise to double.  The naan turned out perfectly and was extremely soft and delicious.  As much as I love chapattis and the fact that it’s made of only flour, water, and a bit of ghee…the naan is certainly a step up.  I think I’ll save it for special dinners.  It is much more forgiving to work with than the chapattis.

I took liberties with the dal and added cayenne pepper, red pepper, and substituted two tsin tsin peppers for the green.  It resulted in good, lingering, complex heat.  I did not expect the paneer to be so thick!  It was actually hard to chop.  It turned out fairly well – more salt and cream next time.  The vegetable medley was just fine.

All in all a wonderful experiment for a Saturday night!

Lasagna

I just pulled my lasagna out of the oven.

Spinach/Ricotta Lasagna
- Spinach from our CSA (http://www.riverlandfarm.com)
- Tomato sauce made from locally grown organic tomatoes obtained at the farmer’s market this morning (http://www.amherstfarmersmarket.com/)
- Homemade, hand rolled and hand cut pasta made from white whole wheat flour, semolina flour, butter, and water.
- Garlic from our CSA

Garlic bread
- Homemade buttermilk spelt/wheat bread
- Garlic from our CSA
- Cabot extra sharp cheddar cheese (local to MA, as they’re from VT)

I’m feeling the locavore love.

Tomorrow – we plan to go to the Garlic and Arts festival! It’s spectacular. I’m looking forward to the wood fired brick oven. http://www.garlicandarts.org/

I also plan to test out a sweet potato pie recipe, along with a locally raised (soon to be roasted) chicken, “wild” rice, and roasted carrots and beets from our CSA. Life is food. Food is good.

Low-Fat Cuban Sammich

Now I know what you’re thinking… if it isn’t all greasy, porky, and crispy how can a Cuban sandwich taste good? Au contraire my friends! Take two slices of sourdough (or farmer’s bread or a nice hoagie roll) and spread lightly with Miracle Whip, horseradish, pickle relish, and I like to add just a drizzle of chipotle BBQ sauce for kick. For cheese use Sargento reduced fat cheese. I prefer provolone to swiss, but it does sweat more and swiss would hold the sandwich together better. As for the meat selection, instead of loading it up with ham, roasted pork, and salami… try Oscar Mayer fat-free turkey bologna. Slather the outside pieces of bread with margarine and Cajun seasoning before pressing the sandwich in a George Foreman grill until crispy and you’re set!

Now personally I believe that warm sandwiches should congeal in the middle. However, when the provolone sweats and the bologna sweats things can get slippery. So I add just a pinch of shredded asiago or parmesan cheese between the layers. This is also nice because it adds a bit of salt to the equation.

Best Cupcakes Ever!

I made these cupcakes for Memorial Day a couple years ago and they were absolutely delicious. So below I’m posting the recipe I put together verbatim:

Peach Amaretto Cupcakes (makes 24)

Roasted Peach Mush:

• Halve and pit four medium peaches
• Preheat oven at 350
• Let cool then scoop out and mush

Cupcake Batter:

• · Preheat oven at 350
• 3 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 ½ cups sugar
• 1cup unsalted butter (Oberweis sweet cream butter)
• 6 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 ½ cup milk, amaretto, and orange juice (proportioned to taste)
• Roasted peach mush

Filling:

• Marzipan
• Peach Butter

Using electric an mixer, beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add eggs one at a time until light and fluffy. Prepare rest of wet and dry ingredients separately and alternately add slowly to mixture. Beat until smooth. Fold in peaches. Pour batter into cupcake tins halfway. Roll marzipan balls and dip in peach butter then drop into cupcake tins and let settle. Cover marzipan balls with batter until full. Bake for 28-34 minutes or until golden brown and tops of cupcakes spring back lightly when touched.