Tofu paneer

When I was a grad student in LA, my friend Ben and I had an Indian themed weekend in Atwater, where he was house-sitting. We went to an Indian grocery in the morning, where we had fried crepes filled with spicy ginger and garlic for lunch. We hit up a Bollywood dance class, where I'm sure we were quite the pretty picture -- Ben, at 6"2, the only guy in a class of women, all gangly limbs, and me, the eternal klutz. But that night, Ben and I cast our clumsiness aside to make a delicious dish of saag paneer.

I could live on saag paneer. Anything that's got cubes of fried cheese, curry, and lots of leafy greens is good in my book. More often than I should, I walk to Clay Pit downtown on my lunch break to pick up a (huge) lunch portion. Unfortunately, despite the presence of spinach, I can't kid myself any longer - saag paneer is not a health dish.

I got the recipe from the latest issue of Vegetarian Times, and because I didn't modify it much I don't have legal permission to republish it here. Basically, it substitutes tofu (browned in cooking spray, but you could use oil) for the paneer, and soy yogurt for the cream. Otherwise, the flavors are all there!

Will I regularly swap my beloved paneer and cream for tofu and soy? Probably not. But, it makes a healthy, tasty work lunch with lots of protein and iron.

New year, same root vegetables

 It's a new year, and time to get back to cooking and writing after a profoundly weird end to 2010. In honor of this, I think it's about time I gave my blog a pronounceable name. The old one LOOKS great, but just try explaining the name of your blog to people at a party when it's... more visual than verbal. It takes 20 minutes, maybe even charts and diagrams.

One thing that doesn't change, however, is root vegetables in winter. Behold, the humble sweet potato:

And my perennial favorite, collard greens:

Of course, there's also my abiding love for risotto. I've already talked about how I first started making risotto. It was a product of necessity: with a single burner and a love of fresh vegetables, what's an American exchange student to do? I still love making it. There's something so calm about having to tend the pot, stirring all along. You can really do any vegetables in risotto -- I had Cate and Kelly over for a re-housewarming party, and I roasted some sweet potatoes, braised some collard greens, and threw them in the mix.

The trick to risotto is really patience -- something that I'm trying to cultivate more in this new year. You've got to wait for the onions to be golden soft before you add the rice. Then you add wine, and it has to be absorbed before you add more and more stock, little by little. In all that time, you can't really leave the stove, but you're rewarded with such a rich, creamy dish, perfect for a rainy January night.
Cheers, everyone.