Paneer Jalfrezi - An Exotic Indian Curry With Cottage Cheese

Certain food brings back the memories associated with it, the person who cooked it, the people we ate with, and the occasion it was cooked for. When Alicia Cowan of My Dish contacted me to write about food which makes me nostalgic, it took me a while to zero down to just one recipe! Oh yes... this cottage cheese in exotic gravy mom prepared for almost all the parties we used to host at home is a nostalgic recipe. Though not for the flavors and the recipe itself but for the fun & frolic we had during those parties with friends. And mom was quite famous for this Paneer Jalfrzi with her hot Kulchas. Even now whenever (read rarely) I cook this recipe I make sure to call at least one childhood friend to talk about those wonderful childhood days of yesteryear.

Preparation time
20 minutes

Cooking time
20 minutes

Serves
2 persons

Ingredients

200 gm Cottage cheese or Paneer

50 gms fresh sweet corn kernels

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds

1/2 tsp. sugar

Salt as desired

Water 1 cup or more

Ground to paste

1 large onion

2 large tomato/1 cup tomato puree

2 tbsp. grated coconut

8-10 cashew nuts

1 small green chilli

1 inch ginger

Spices;

2 cardamon pods

2 cloves

1 tsp. red chili powder

1/4 tsp. turmeric powder

1 tsp. coriander powder

Garnish;

Shredded fresh coriander leaves

4-5 strands of saffron (optional)

2 tbsp. cream (optional)

Preparation

Peel and chop onion. Slice tomato and onion and grind it along with rest of the ingredients (ground to paste). Slice the cottage cheese into small pieces.

Heat oil in a kadai/wok and crackle cumin seeds add cardamom pods & clove followed by the ground paste. Add all the spices mentioned. Saute' well till for about 7-8 minutes till the raw smell of the ground paste disappear and the oil starts floating over the masala.

You can fry the cottage cheese cubes into the oil before making the gravy or just use them as it is.

Boil 1 cup of water or more if you require more gravy. Pour the boiled water into the cooked gravy and simmer well for another 5 minutes.

Serve the exotic Cottage cheese in nutty gravy - Paneer Jalfrezi with Indian flat breads, or Kulchas.

Notes;

I used tomato paste in the recipe, since I had an open packet of the same in my refrigerator.You can avoid coconut and cashew altogether and still get a rich gravy for the recipe.Slightly deep fry the Cottage cheese cubes for much better texture ad taste.Add fresh green peas instead of sweet corn for much better color contrast in the dish.Use Tofu in place of cottage cheese for much healthier option.

Yes, I got my credits when hubby ashed me, "Did you get it from somewhere", as I rarely cook such rich and heavy dishes on normal days. Recreate the magic of a restaurant at your home, make your weekends special and surprise your guests with this delightful recipe.

Lite recipes for right health. Quick-to-cook, easy and healthy recipes for busy couples, bachelors and all those for whom time is precious. Articles on health and eating right will help you combine nutritional benefits of various food in your cooking.

http://www.litebite.in/

In case you like to indulge on food, do visit my other site for exotic and grand recipes, or read about places to visit in India;

http://sanjeetakk.blogspot.com/

Original article

Minty Cottage Cheese and Spicy Garlic Indian Flat Breads

Time flies when you are enjoying what you are doing and doing what you enjoy the most. And I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation at my native Udaipur. Learned to cook a few authentic recipes from mom, visited all the historical places which were in my wish list for long and most important met many of my schoolmates after almost 30 years!

Mom made these two versions of Stuffed flat breads or Parathas for my travel food. My kids dislike air travel and given a choice would always prefer trains over flights. They love to watch green fields, rivers, animals and villages over the dull and gray clouds. So I booked for the flight for one way and came back by train.

These stuffed flat breads were the perfect accompaniment in the journey along with some ready-to-eat food that I packed along. I had them for my breakfast, lunch and the dinner as well. The breads are extremely easy to make and are scrumptious to snack upon with a hot cup of tea.

Preparation time:

20 minutes

Cooking time:

15 minutes

Serves:

2 persons

Ingredients:

1 cup whole-wheat flour

1/2 cup cottage cheese

1 tbsp of dry mint leaves

1/2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp chilly powder

1/4 tsp. Turmeric powder

Salt as desired

1/2 tsp dry mango powder (optional)

1/2 cup Water

vegetable oil

Preparation:

Take a large vessel and add the wholewheat flour, salt and 1 tbsp of oil in it and rub the dry flour with finger. Add water and knead the dough. Quantity of water may vary according to the flour, if the flour is coarse of home ground it will need more water while a fine ground flour will need a little less.

In another bowl and add the fresh cottage cheese, chilly powder, turmeric powder, cumin seeds, salt, crushed dry mint leaves in it. Mix all the spices and the cottage cheese well.

Take a small ball of dough make a perfect round by rolling it in the palm. Dust it with dry flour and flatten it on a board using a rolling pin into a small circular disc. Spread a teaspoon of oil over it and add about a tablespoon of the above cottage cheese mix and spread it thoroughly.

Make a cut along the radius of the circle as shown in the picture below and start folding the rolled dough in a circular motion till it makes a single long tubular shape. Flatten the dough as shown in the picture below and roll it again into a large circle using dry flour. Make all the flat breads in the similar manner and keep them aside.

Cooking:

Heat a girdle and put the rolled out flat bread on it. Turn to the other side and add 1/2 tsp. oil to the sides of the flat bread. Fry both the sides for 2 minute and cook till golden spots appear on it.

Serve hot with tomato sauce or any spread of your choice. Pack them in an aluminum foil for a great travel and picnic food.

Lite recipes for right health. Quick-to-cook, easy and healthy recipes for busy couples, bachelors and all those for whom time is precious. Articles on health and eating right will help you combine nutritional benefits of various food in your cooking.

http://www.litebite.in/

In case you like to indulge on food, do visit my other site for exotic and grand recipes, or read about places to visit in India;

http://sanjeetakk.blogspot.com/

Original article

Vegan Parmesan Cheese

There are many delicious options if you're looking for a vegan parmesan cheese to adorn your pastas, top your pizzas and make your yummy food that much yummier. These dairy-free options can either be store-bought to homemade - and the homemade recipes just take 2-10 minutes, depending on which one you decide to make. I typically opt to make parmesan at home, since it's faster than running to the store!

However, sometimes running to the store is just that much more convenient if you're out and about, traveling or couldn't be bothered to lift a finger in the kitchen. Enter store-bought vegan parmesan!

Galaxy Nutritional Foods has a soy-based vegan parmesan alternative that is widely available in health food stores. It has a realistic texture to dairy parmesan, is cholesterol-free (like all vegan food!), very low in calories and fat, and is a half-decent source of calcium, too.

Parma! Vegan Parmesan is a raw alternative to the soy-based parmesan that Galaxy Nutritional Foods created. And the ingredient list is minuscule - only 3 ingredients, just like the two recipes I share below! You really can't go wrong with walnuts, nutritional yeast and sea salt. While it won't trick anyone into thinking it's dairy parmesan, it tastes great in its own right, and makes an excellent and healthy topping for pretty much anything.

Both products can be found in many health food stores, as well as online at stores like veganessentials.com.

Okay, so that covers the popular store-bought vegan parmesan brands. What about homemade?

For starters, I'm of the opinion that a good vegan parmesan only needs 3 ingredients. The two recipes I'll show you just have 3 ingredients each, and they each have very different but equally awesome flavor profiles.

Keep in mind that these incredibly simple recipes do not taste exactly like dairy parmesan. The point of these recipes isn't to mimic - it's to recreate the experience of eating parmesan, to give your bite of pasta that familiar salty-cheesy taste without containing any actual cheese.

The first recipe is great if you're a nooch (nutritional yeast) fan and aren't too keen on raw garlic. With the simple ingredient list of nutritional yeast, toasted sesame seeds and salt, it might seem like an odd trio for a parmesan recipe, but rest assured it's quite awesome. The nooch is what adds that "cheesy" taste, the toasted sesame seeds add body and depth, and the salt is what really makes it reminiscent of parmesan.

Vegan Parmesan - Version 1
1/4 c. white sesame seeds
2 tbsp. nutritional yeast flakes
1/4 tsp. salt

Heat the oven to 350 F and place the sesame seeds on a dry baking pan, toasting for 4-8 minutes until they turn golden. Watch them carefully so they don't burn! Alternately, you can toast the sesame seeds on a dry skillet on the stove top.

Process the toasted sesame seeds, nutritional yeast and salt in a food processor, processing just long enough to break the seeds down into smaller chunks, but not long enough to completely break it down into butter. You don't want a paste, you want a crumble. Serve as you would dairy parmesan!

The next parmesan recipe is great if you aren't a big nooch fan, or if your pantry simply lacks this vegan staple. Salt, brazil nuts and raw garlic give this parmesan a savory quality and lots of bite.

Though the brazil nuts make a great texture for this parmesan, feel free to swap them out for another type of nut, such as almonds or sesame seeds.

Vegan Parmesan - Version 2
1/2 c. brazil nuts
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. salt

Process all ingredients in a small food processor until combined but still crumbly. Do not over-process or you will have paste, not parmesan. Serve like you would dairy parmesan and enjoy!

I highly recommend attempting a vegan parmesan recipe in your own kitchen. It's such a simple process, and there's tons of wiggle room in the recipes themselves if you want to switch it up and do something different. Aside from tasting really yummy, these nut- and seed-based cheeses are nutritionally superior to the dairy kind, containing important minerals like selenium (from the brazil nuts), calcium, magnesium and copper, with no cholesterol or "bad fats". Good taste and good health can be in the same sentence together!

Allysia is a certified raw food chef and health enthusiast who enjoys concocting tasty vegan recipes in her tiny kitchen. You can find her at her website The Real Meal.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Allysia_Kerney

Original article

Vegan Nut Cheese

These nut cheese recipes are extremely easy to do, with the advantage of having the same health benefits as dairy cheese with the added probiotics. They can be made to stay a soft, spreading-type or shaped into hard blocks which can be sliced. The most effective way of doing this is to use a dehydrator, but one can also leave the shapes uncovered in the refrigerator and after a day or so a rind will development on the outside.

Various types of nuts can be used (and interchanged), but for the most convincing results use nuts that will mimic the taste of dairy cheese. Use for instance peeled almonds for making feta-style; sweeter cashew nuts or earthy tasting walnuts for making swiss-style; a mix of pine-nuts and brazils for making parmesan or pecorino style nut cheese and macadamia nuts with its higher oil content for making hard cheddar types (add a pinch of curry and turmeric powders to your nut pulp). Seeds, such as sunflower with sesame, or pumpkin seeds on their own also make delicious nut cheeses. Dehydrate the shaped nut blocks or domes until just a rind forms (and the mixture is still semi-soft inside), or dry out further until almost crumbly, depending on the type you're making.

Start by soaking nuts in water. To make things interesting, use two different types of nuts to give a layer effect. Use ¾ cup of raw walnuts and a ¾ cup raw macadamia nuts and soak them separately overnight in two bowls in enough water to cover them.

The next day, drain the water off and rinse the nuts. Keeping them separate, place the nuts in a strong blender or food processor fitted with the steel S-blade. Add ¾ cup filtered water and ½ tsp probiotic powder (this would be for each batch of nuts). Blend until smooth and thick.

Pour the two thick mixtures into 2 muslin cloths or nut milk bags that sit in sieves over bowls to catch the water (whey). Twist the muslin cloths or nut milk bags to remove excess water.

Place a heavy object, like a clean river stone on each of the squeezed nut mixtures. Cover the two bowls with a tea cloth and place somewhere warm (but not in the sun) for 48 hours. In this time, good bacteria will ferment the nut cheese and at the end of 2 days the mixtures will have a faint sour smell.

Transfer the two nut mixtures to two mixing bowls. Add 1 - 2 tbsp of savoury yeast flakes and ½ tsp of salt to each bowl. Stir in any other flavourings of your choice, such as: chopped olives, fresh herbs, spices or even finely grated fresh vegetables, onion, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes or dried onion and garlic granules or chili flakes. Stir well.

Press the mixture into a container to make a nice shape and then tip it out. This is now ready to eat (a soft nut cheese) and can be sliced. You can also dehydrate the nut cheese for a few hours in order for the nut cheese to form a rind; alternatively if you don't have a dehydrator you can simply unmould the nut cheese onto a plate and leave it uncovered in the refrigerator. After two days the nut cheese would have formed a rind as well.

Keep for 10 days in the refrigerator.

Laurinda Erasmus is a vegan chef and author of a vegan recipe book, called Benessere well-being: vegan & sugar-free eating for a healthy life-style, by Quinoa Publishing. The book has over 520 recipes, each with a colour photograph, taken by the author herself. The book won a gold medal at the Living Now Book Awards in New York, USA. She is passionate about the vast possibilities of creating plant-based meals, the increased wellness and energy through plant nutrition and making a smaller impact on our precious ecosystem. Through her book and vegan classes, she shows healthy and fun ways of how to bring more plant-based meals into one's diet. She also travels extensively, always collecting new recipes and re-writing them as vegan dishes. She shares her tips for vegan travellers and with vegan travel recipes on her blogsite http://veganwellbeing.wordpress.com/ and her book can be viewed at http://www.veganwellbeing.net/

Original article