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I grew up on Indian food. Not so much in my early years, but in high school, a large number of my friends were of Indian descent, and some of my favorite memories are of Friday nights in their homes, seated in a big blanket eating homemade Indian food with my cross country team. It was exotic, spicy, aromatic, and delicious, a wonderful way for us high schoolers to get to know our friends’ heritage and to eat some amazing food. A vegetarian and often anemic, I quickly came to love Saag Paneer ( a dish made with spinach and homemade Indian cheese) for its delicious, creamy, flavors and the fact that its iron content made me feel great when I ate it, still does. I have eaten it dozens of times over the years, but never in my life have I attempted to make it.

If you read my blog often, you know that I cook frequently but that most of my food is fairly simple. I am learning to take risks, and advancing to the next round in Project Food Blog provided the perfect excuse. I was going to make Saag Paneer.

The timeline for this post was short, so I mustered up my 50th wind for the week and headed to the grocery store straight after work. I had an idea in my head of what the ingredients would be, and I consulted a few websites for the others.

I thought about trying to buy already-made Paneer, soft cheese popular in Indian cooking, but then realized my post wouldn’t be much without it, so I took the leap and decided to make it myself using an incredibly easy recipe from All Recipes. For the Saag part, I loosely followed a recipe from the Food Network.

red chili milk and buttermilkimage
I tried to keep my ingredients local. The hot pepper, onion, garlic, butter, and buttermilk were all from Massachusetts or somewhere else in New England.

 

Saag10 ounces of spinach1 TBS curry powder

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, finely diced

1 red chili pepper, finely diced

3 TBS grated ginger

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt

1/4 cup buttermilk

5 TBS ghee, clarified butter made by heating butter until a boil, then filtering out the white foam, or milk solids

Paneer1/2 gallon whole milk4 cups buttermilk

Since I was most nervous about the cheese, I started with that and found that it could not be easier. Boiling milk, slowly streaming in buttermilk, straining it in cheesecloth, and allowing the packed curds to cool was all it took.

buttermilkmaking Paneer cheese  

 making Paneer making Paneer

 Paneer

I was hungry, and it was difficult for me to not eat the whole ball of cheese in all of its fresh, creamy deliciousness. I flattened the cheese out and allowed it to cool so that I could later cut it into cubes.

The spinach ended up being easy as well. I made the ghee by bringing butter to a boil, the pouring it through a fine mesh strainer which got all of the white solids out, leaving behind a clarified butter. In that ghee, I sautéed the onion, garlic, ginger, and chili pepper. Meanwhile, the spinach cooked down in a small bit of water. Once the spinach had wilted down sufficiently, I added it to the flavorful ghee mixture, tossed it all around, then turned the heat off before adding the yogurt and buttermilk.

ghee  spinach

spinach Saag Paneer

I topped the spinach with cubes of cheese. The recipe called for me to fry them, but they were so delicious on their own, I wanted to preserve those flavors. 

Saag Paneer

This dish turned out so well! It was creamy, slightly spicy, a little tangy, and warm, cozy, comfort food. I am glad that I took the leap, and like with baking, I am learning that even dishes that seem complicated are easy if you have all of the ingredients you need.

Thank you to all who voted for me in the first round of Project Food Blog. I never imagined being advanced to the next round, but I was thrilled and so happy to have the chance to take this culinary journey to India. Best wishes to all of the contestants!

Do you have a favorite dish that seems far too daunting for you to make?

Tags: foodbuzz, Indian Food, Saag Paneer

Its Friday Foodie Feature time, possibly my favorite post of the week! Today we meet Mellissa from A Fit and Spicy Life. Mellissa was another one of the fun food bloggers that I had the opportunity to meet at the Foodbuzz Festival in San Francisco, and I have been following her blog ever since. I am glad she chose her trip to Brazil as her most fun blog post to write because I definitely read and lived vicariously through her during those days 🙂 She shares great posts on recipes, fitness, and travel, and her site is definitely worth checking out. Hope you are all having a great Friday and enjoy this week’s foodie feature!

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How long have you been blogging?

9 months, I started blogging because we were getting married in Italy and I wanted to capture the whole trip!

What is your favorite thing about blogging? Least favorite?

Favorite thing has been making online friends and meeting other bloggers in person. Attending the Foodbuzz Festival was also one of the best weekends I have ever had!

My least favorite thing has been camera and computer fails, it can be so frustrating when you have everything all ready and something malfunctions! I hate having to start all over.

What has been your most fun blog post to write?

The posts that I have the most fun writing are about travel and our most recent trip was to Rio. We toured a favela and it was just amazing to see such a cultured community in so little space.

http://www.afitandspicylife.com/2009/11/29/rio-friday-november-27th/

Where do you see your blog this time next year?

I want to grow my readership but most importantly I want to continue to do this for me. I love being able to look back and see what going on.

Is there anything else about your blogging experience you would like to share?

The biggest thing has been how incredible the blogging community has been, it is such an amazing group of people who are always willing to help each other. I LOVE it!

Interested in being the next featured foodie? Email me!

And don’t forget to enter my Secrets of a Skinny Chef Giveaway!

Tags: food blogger, foodbuzz, foodie, Guest Blogger

Foodbuzz and San Pellegrino please pick me! I interrupt this previously scheduled post to tell you about a very important competition taking place on March 7 in Napa Valley.

San Pellegrino, the sparkly company behind the mineral water that I love (truly, I commented on their Foodbuzz profile the day before the contest was announced!) are hosting the Almost Famous Chef Competition. San Pellegrino is setting the stage for the world’s up and coming culinary stars to show their stuff. And the finals are taking place in Napa. Who will win? I know I want to be front and center to find out. As a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher, I have the opportunity to be chosen to attend and participate in this event. I am extremely interested in up and coming chefs and the newest generation of culinary geniuses and would love to see firsthand who is out there and more importantly TASTE what they are cooking. It would be interesting to see where the latest and greatest are going with their cuisine and what trends will define them . . . or what trends they will start!  March also marks the celebration of my 30th birthday, and a chance to participate in the Almost Famous Chef Competition would make my decade! Fingers crossed!!!

Even if you can’t be there, you can follow the competition here: http://www.almostfamouschef.com If you love watching any sort of cooking or food-related show on TV and devour food magazines like I do, you will not want to miss this!

First of all I want to point out that this soup does not involve coconut milk or curry paste, a rarity for me! 🙂 Fennel seeds are the absolute star of this super simple dish, enhancing the flavor of the other ingredients and just making it taste like something way more special than chickpeas and carrots blended with tomatoes and broth.

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The ingredients:

2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight

3 cups organic vegetable broth

2 cups chopped carrots

1 can whole tomatoes with the liquid

3 cloves garlic

small palm full of fennel seeds

1/4 cup red wine

1 TSP garlic powder

freshly ground black pepper to taste.

I started out by simmering the chickpeas and carrots in the veggie broth, fennel, wine, and garlic until softened, then split the mix into 3 parts. I used the “chop” setting on my food processer for the first batch and tossed in the tomatoes with their juice to get the whole tomatoes down to manageable bites. I put this first batch into a large soup pot. I took the second batch and pureed it until very smooth, then added that to the soup pot as well. The final batch went in whole, and I combined all three of them together to create a soup that was sort of smooth and creamy with satisfying pieces of chickpea and carrot for a little bit of bite.

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Its really not very pretty to look at, but it is SO good and filling! I love that slight licorice flavor that the fennel brings to the dish, and the fact that some of the chickpeas were whole and some were pureed really made the dish feel like a meal. I ate it for breakfast and was full all morning!

Today is an exciting day. Not only am I hosting Blogger Secret Ingredient, but I am also the Worker Bee over at On a Lobster Placemat. Check out Rose’s weekly feature to see how I stay fit and healthy!

Please don’t forget about my raffle to raise money for The ALLY Foundation! Each entry is a $10 donation on my fundraising page: http://www.firstgiving.com/meghanmalloyteamally. The prize is a $100 gift card to Williams Sonoma! The ALLY Foundation is doing incredible work protecting us from violent sex offenders, and I am proud to be running the 2010 Boston Marathon for them. Anything that you can donate will help!

Tags: chickpeas, fennel, foodbuzz, recipe, soup, Vegetarian

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