Palak paneer/Saag paneer

Palak Paneer is one of my all time favorite Indian curries. It is a hearty, wholesome, comforting dish loved by all in my family too. Sometimes also known as Saag Paneer, it is an all time classic. The homemade cheese or paneer is slowly simmered in a very aromatic  and creamy curried spinach or saag/palak - an omnipresent dish in almost every menu of Indians restaurants all over the world. It is served with a basket of buttery naans. You break a piece of the bread, use it to scoop up the gravy and savor the mild yet authoritative burst of flavor, taste and texture.
The combination of spinach and cheese is a power pack. With the protein of the cheese and calcium, iron, vitamins of spinach, this dish besides being a treat to the eye and taste buds, is really good for you. If your kids get a liking for it - like mine did - it is also a great way to put some spinach in them.
Read more »

Paneer makani naanizza!

eftovers can be an issue at times. Mostly hubs will not want to eat it the following day (he says he does but I can tell he'd rather not). It is more of an issue when your leftovers are dishes that are close to your heart and you just spent your entire weekend cooking them up. It just so happened this past weekend that I had leftover Panner Makhani and Naan, two things that I just cannot explain how much I love. Now of course I couldn't eat it all by myself and it would break my heart if I had to throw away paneer in any shape or form.
You of course guessed where this is leading up to. Long-story-short, all my leftovers were gone in no time. Not until later, when I pointed out, is when hubs realized they were leftovers. This was not the first time I had made these insanely delicious fusion pizzas that kiddo and I like to lovingly call 'nanizza'. It never fails me as was the case this time around. Kiddo totally loved it too - the result that pleases me the most.
Naan based pizzas are becoming increasingly popular, so much so that the frozen version of it have started to appear on regular grocery stores. I have made it with different toppings like aloo gobhi, palak paneer and even baingan bharta and this time it was paneer makhani. 

Read more »

Saag Paneer Calzone/Spinach Paneer Curry Calzone (whole wheat)

love Italian food! Love eating it and love cooking it. Love the different layers, flavors complex yet simple, exotic yet rustic just like Indian food. You can sense the rich culture and the legacy from the food .
Our (indians) love for indo-chinese is well known but another cuisine that has come in from across the shores and become a part of the cuisine... is Italian. With its pastas and pizza and other goodies and use of herbs, five star restaurants as well as hole-in-the-wall stores near every street now have some kind of “pizza” on their menu! It keeps the essense of pizza that is a thick bread smothered in tomato ketchup topped with melty cheese, but almost always has a local (desi) touch to it whether it be use of paneer or chicken! Lots of fusion recipes have been born, you can easily find panner pizza even butter chicken pizza in any pizza hut franchise in india - I have few on my blog too. This time around I took my classic saag paneer recipe and tucked inside a calzone and the result was a beautiful marrige of two of my favorite cuisines - a fusion food heaven!
Read more »