Summer Spinach, Strawberry & Quinoa Salad

Hello Foodies,

If not from the heat (!), the produce in the market has surely announced the arrival of Summer. When the temperatures soar there is nothing more refreshing than a bite of juicy strawberry or watermelon. Lucky for me there's a huge strawberry farm close to where I work and the berries there are the best. The center of the berries are filled with sweet juices that fill your mouth as you bite into it. I've bought countless punnets of berries this season and have hardly cooked anything with them. The path of least resistance leads right to my mouth from the basket and there's no stopping. But its not just the strawberries that are at their best right now, there's a lot of green gems to focus on as well. Candy like sweet peas and fava beans are a delight, salad greens like arugula, spinach, chard, kale are all vying for your attention. Mother Nature knows what we need and when we need it so why tinker with her.

I had a refreshing strawberry spinach salad at the local deli a few weeks back and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was. The fresh bite of the strawberries against the earthy & light spinach made for a really satisfying lunch. A google search revealed that the combo wasn't uncommon, but it was to me. I would never have used strawberries in a salad and now, not anymore. A simple lemon vinaigrette works just as well but I've been in a fennel phase lately. So I lightly toasted fennel seeds and used them to flavor a vinaigrette bursting with lemon zest. Making vinaigrette's at home is a revelation if you haven't tried it yet. You don't need fancy ingredients make one - a lemon, good olive oil, salt & pepper is all you need to get started. And then based on how often you have salads you can begin exploring by using different vinegars, oils, mustards, spices etc. Using the very same ingredients you can completely change the flavor profile of a salad by using a different dressing.

Spinach, Strawberry & Quinoa Salad

Prep time - 10mins

Cook time - 30mins

Servings - 2

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup - Quinoa
• 2 cups - Baby Spinach, washed & drained (or mixed greens)
• 2 Tbsp - Walnuts, toasted & coarsely chopped
• 1/2 cup - Fava beans
• 3/4 -1 cup - Strawberries, sliced
• 1 Tbsp - Parmesan cheese, grated (optional)

Fennel - Citrus Vinaigrette

• 1/2 tsp - Fennel seeds
• 1/2 tsp - Lemon zest
• 2 Tbsp - Lemon Juice
• 2 Tbsp - Extra virgin Olive Oil
• 1/8 tsp - Sea salt & Pepper, freshly ground (adjust both to taste)

Method:

• Toast quinoa until it just begins to pop (optional) and rinse under multiple changes of water. Combine with a little less than 1/2 cup of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to the lowest setting, cover and cook for 15mins until all the water is absorbed by the quinoa. Keep covered for another 10mins and fluff with a fork.
• To prepare fava beans, bring water to a boil and dunk them in for just a minute before draining. When cool the handle the outer skin should pop right off. Wash, drain the strawberries and slice lengthwise. Wash and thoroughly dry spinach or greens of choice.
• Vinaigrette - Toast fennel seeds on a low heat until they begin to turn color and are fragrant. Transfer to a pestle & mortar and grind to a fine powder. Add lemon zest, juice, salt, pepper and combine. Drizzle in the olive oil and combine using the pestle to emulsify. Dip a leaf of spinach to test for seasonings and adjust accordingly.
• When ready to serve, season the quinoa first with a bit of the dressing. Combine spinach, strawberries, fava beans and toss together with a little more dressing. (This recipe makes extra dressing, you'll need about a teaspoon to dress a cup of greens) Top the salad with some freshly grated parmesan, if needed.

Notes: This is more of an idea than a recipe and the options for variation are many. Swap blueberries for strawberries, pecans or almonds for walnuts, or try candied/spiced nuts instead. Arugula or mixed greens could be substituted for spinach. Add a spoon of pesto to season quinoa instead of vinaigrette. Perhaps, skip quinoa entirely and use cooked brown/green/black lentils instead.

This was a satisfying salad chockful of fresh flavors and textures. Every bite has something interesting with each ingredient being at the peak of its flavor. I try cooking quinoa and lentils in bigger batches that last a few meals which makes putting together salads like this very convenient. And after a nutrient rich meal like this one you are sure to feel good about yourself..and probably make room for a cool dessert which is, afterall, the ultimate goal :)

Spinach dal/Palakura pappu

Dear foodies,


This is recipe has a double boost of toor dal, so beware! This was a quick quick (ya, that quick!) dish that I made for chapati's. So why was it that quick? (have I used up my quota for using the q-word in this para?) I had some frozen cooked toor dal in the freezer, I always make extra and store 1/2 cup measures of it in separate bags in the freezer. That really makes a dal/sambar easy the next time round, do try it is you don't already. And after the insect scares I got from my organic spinach/mint buys, I had a pack of frozen spinach waiting for me in the freezer too. So that meant I only had to thaw and temper the ingredients to have my dal ready. So now you know why it was quick na? :D The double booster of toor dal came from a handful of frozen tuvar lilva tossed into the boiling dal.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup - Toor dal, cooked
• 1 cup - Spinach, frozen (or fresh, chopped spinach 1 1/2 -2 cups)
• handful of frozen tuvar lilva/lima beans/peas
  
• 1/2 - medium sized onion, cubed
• 2 small green chillies, slit lengthwise
• 1/2 -1 tsp sambar powder adjusted to taste
  
• Salt to taste

Seasoning/Tadka/popu:

• 1 tsp - oil
• 1 dried red chilli, broken
• 1 clove garlic, sliced
• 1/2 tsp mustard seeds and cumin
• 3-4 curry leaves, torn to pieces
  

Method:

• In a saucepan on medium heat, add 1/2 cup of water, frozen dal, spinach and let them heat through and thaw. Midway I also added the cubed onions. ( I was too lazy to heat another pan to saute the onions in. Since I let the dal boil and simmer later on, the onions were cooked well by the end of it, so save yourself the time and the effort)
  
• Once the ingredients are thawed completely add the green chillies, sambar powder, frozen tuvar lilva and salt. Let the dal to come to a boil and simmer for a few minutes, add more water if its too thick.
• For the tadka, heat the oil in a small pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds, as they crackle add the garlic. Allow it to brown a little and then add the curry leaves. After they crisp up, add the red chillies and turn off the heat. Add this to the dal and cover for a few minutes.

The browned garlic bits are very tasty and so are the tuvar lilva. They don't soften up totally like peas or lima beans and retain a slight bite which I really liked about them. The dal goes great with chapati's or rice. I had it with some dosa a few days later and found that it was a pretty decent combo. Here is another really good dal recipe, one of my favs.

Ravioli 101

Dear foodies,

Has it happened to you? A recipe or dish just gets stuck on your mind and the only way you can get it out of your system is to cook it once...and until then it haunts you every time you are in the kithcen or watching TV or out shopping. Yes ?? Thank God! then I am not alone :D It was ravioli for me. My favorite Italian restaurant serves a mean mushroom ravioli, and everyone who has eaten it swears by it. I haven't tried it because a certain kind of mushroom (don't know which) triggers a very bad stomach ache for me and so I avoid anything that has mushrooms when eating out. I guess that was when the ravioli madness started...

I went by the frozen pasta aisle in my grocery store a couple of times, but stopped myself from buying any of the vegetarian ravioli's they had because they were overstuffed with cheese. With me trying to control my diet, that was a very bad option. So I decided I would make them....yess, that crazy! I watched two different shows on TV in a week, which made fresh pasta, I also picked up this wonderful Italian cookbook from the library which started out explaining how good pasta can be made at home. Now that was the last straw...

So off I went shopping for my pasta, I picked up a pack of frozen spinach because RR is always telling how much cheaper it is than fresh spinach, then I picked up some 'light' ricotta cheese and a pound of guilt. Yes, its still cheese, right ? As I was going through the dairy section I saw some lite silken tofu and that flashed a bulb. Why not substitute the cheese like a vegan version of ravioli? I love tofu and since I was pairing it with spinach and pasta and other garnishes, it surely wouldn't taste that bad. So last weekend I set out making my own pasta at home...from scratch...Yay! It was easier than I thought, but was also time consuming. May be because it was my first time and I had not figured out the exact method etc., etc., so I spent roughly about 30-40 mins making 10 ravioli's :)) Well, don't forget to account for the photography breaks though. Every time I wanted to click a pic, I had to wash, wipe and dry my hands; get the camera, click and immediately tuck it safely away from the kitchen and all that flour. So not really bad from plain flour to plated ravioli right?

Here goes the recipe, I made an egg-less version ofcourse.

Ingredients:

pasta dough:

• 1 cup + 1/4 cup- All purpose flour (whole wheat flour can also be used)
• 1/4 cup + - Water
• Salt to taste

filling:

• 1/2 cup - Silken (lite) tofu, crumbled
  
• 1/2 cup - Spinach, thawed and water squeezed out
• 1 tsp - Red chilli flakes
• 1/2 tsp - Nutmeg powder
• Salt to taste
• 1-2 Tbsp - Soy milk/spinach water

Method:

1. In a food processor, combine the tofu and spinach. Start out with dry squeezed spinach so that the stuffing is not watery. Add required amount of water/soy milk to then blend all the other ingredients together.
   
2. Once blended, add the chilli flakes, nutmeg and salt and adjust the seasonings to taste.

1. On to the dough, on a flat surface place your flour in a heap, add salt and mix. Make a well in the center and pour 1/2-3/4 of the water and slowly start stirring with a fork to incorporate the flour and water. Gradually add the rest of the water, and using your hands make a smooth dough kneading it well to form a round ball, resembling chapati dough. (Now, this method of making the dough was shown on TV and also described in the book. I am not sure why I cannot make it like normal chapati dough itself instead of the making a well, and using a fork n all. May be next time I will do it that way, and update the post with my results. If any of you know the reason, please do leave a comment)
2. Once the dough is ready, divide it into two, and flatten one ball into a very thin layer. Use the extra flour to dust your surface, roller and hands. The dough has to be extremely thin and pliable, using all purpose flour instead of wheat flour I think helps here. Try to spread the dough in a rectangular shape instead of circular to avoid wastage.
   
3. Now cut through the layers to form 1 1/2" to 2" squares. One round of dough gave me about 10 ravioli.
   
4. Place a spoonful of the filling in the center of a square, wet the edges lightly with water and seal with another square. While sealing it try to get the air out of the center and press all four sides. Otherwise the ravioli may open up when boiling.
5. Arrange the finished ravioli on a parchment paper so they don't stick to each other. You can freeze the ravioli or use them fresh.
   
6. To cook them, bring a pot of water to a boil, salt it and then drop the ravioli into it. (If frozen, thaw them out first). They will initially sink to the bottom and slowly rise upwards when done. Drain them on a plate and serve them which ever way you like.

The pasta dough can be turned into any shape you want and used instead of dried pasta. I read in some article that wanton wrappers could be used to make ravioli, may be we could try that too ...

I made a simple topping for my ravioli. Heat a pan with a pat of butter, brown some finely chopped garlic and add some crushed red pepper flakes. Next toss in some grape/cherry tomatoes and saute on medium high heat until the tomatoes start to pop and burst. Add a Tbsp or two of the cooked pasta water, cook for a minute until it thickens a little and pour it over your ravioli and season with salt and pepper. Serve warm!

You can top them with marinara or cream sauce but if you have made the ravioli yourself, I would recommend a very basic topping so you get to taste the pasta by itself and not drown it in other sauces. You will also have extra stuffing from this recipe, hang on for more ways of using them :) If using fresh spinach, chop it finely and saute it in a little butter or oil. you could also add some finely chopped shallots to it if you like.

The stuffing was just right, soft and creamy with a clear spinach flavor. The ravioli were cooked perfectly and luckily for me were not doughy at all. The grape tomatoes were tangy and sweet, being a perfect compliment to the milder stuffing in the ravioli. The red pepper flakes added the right amount of spice that I like. In all it was just a perfect weekend adventure for me. I will surely make more of this soon, but for now, the craziness is gone and I am back to being normal :)

Happy Monday!

Palak Paneer !

Dear Foodies,

Here is a simple recipe that transforms boring greens into a delectable creation, Palak Paneer. Just the addition of paneer to the word palak makes it a quick favorite :D I totally forgot about this dish after I came here. Palak Paneer's rich (& greasy) cousin, Saag paneer is a quintessential addition to any Indian restaurant here in the US. They drown the greens in tons of cream and butter robbing them of their natural beauty ! I've somehow never heard of this dish in India, it must be one of those Indo-American creations by some innovative chef !

So last week a friend of mine who reads my blog asked me why I had not blogged about this dish yet, it got me wondering too ! Its a clean, uncomplicated recipe that can be cooked in under 30 mins. Some jeera rice or chapatis on the side and your are all set to have a delicious meal. Thank you KM ! Its has been ages since I enjoyed this dish and it felt sooooo good. It brought back memories of the aloo palak my mom makes( need to get her recipe)

The recipe for palak paneer is very simple, its perfect for first time cooks. There are very few ingredients with the spinach being the star of the show. No heavy cream or butter or masala to spoil the fun here. Its also a very forgiving recipe, letting you use any form of the ingredients without ruining the flavor even a bit. Many recipes I saw online called for cumin and coriander powder, I had neither with no intentions of making them fresh either. So I just crushed the seeds in a mortar and pestle. I also had some leftover tomato puree from the gobi kheema. You can surely use store bought tomato puree or fresh tomatoes. So here's my recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 bunch - Spinach leaves, washed (I used a packet of baby spinach)
• 2 nos - Green chillies, slit lengthwise
• 10-15 - Paneer cubes (I used frozen paneer cubes got from the Indian store)
  
• 1 tbsp - Oil (or butter/ghee if you are in a really good mood :) )
• 2 tsp - Cumin seeds/Jeera
• 1 tsp - Coriander seeds, crushed
  
• 1/2 tsp - Turmeric powder
• 1/2 nos - Onion, sliced
• 2 tsp - Ginger & Garlic paste ( I minced fresh ginger & garlic)
• 1 nos - Ripe tomato, chopped or 1 Tbsp - Tomato puree ( I had some leftover frozen cubes of this tomato puree)
• 1 tsp - Garam masala
• 1 Tbsp - Yogurt
  
• Salt to taste

Method:

1. Boil some water in a vessel. Add the washed spinach, slit green chillies and some salt. When the leaves start to wilt strain them in a colander, storing the water. Wash the leaves under cold water, this I read helps retain the green color of the leaves.
   
2. Using a little of the strained water, puree the spinach and green chillies. I used a hand blender for this. If you choose to skip the blending part, then roughly chop the wilted spinach leaves to get a similar texture.
3. In a pan, heat the oil and splutter the jeera seeds and add crushed coriander seeds (or powder). As they brown, add the onions, ginger-garlic paste (store bought or fresh) and turmeric.
   Tip: Sprinkle a little salt on the onions to soften them faster. Salt brings out the water from the onions and helps them cook faster.
   
4. Once the onions are cooked add chopped tomatoes/puree. Cook until the tomatoes are tender and mushy. In my case I used 3 cubes of the frozen tomato puree and cooked it for 2-3mins. Add some of the strained water if needed.
5. Add the pureed spinach and let it simmer for a few minutes. Don't add too much water as there are no thickening agents in this recipe. I added some yogurt to get a nice smooth texture. When adding yogurt, lower the heat to avoid curdling.
   
6. Meanwhile thaw the paneer cubes in the microwave for a minute or two. Heat some oil in a pan and lightly brown the paneer. Don't toss them around too much as they break up very easily. I took the easiest route by spraying the paneer with some cooking oil and broiling them in the oven for 5 mins.
7. Add the paneer cubes and some garam masala to the palak; cook on low heat for a couple of minutes.
8. Serve hot with jeera rice or chapati. You can use the leftover strained water to make the chapati dough or cook rice.
   

I had some cooked rice in the fridge, so I microwaved it for 3 mins after tossing some jeera, a few drops of oil and a few spoons of water. Instant Jeera rice ready !! I absolutely loved this combo. Spinach in this form tastes sooo good. You even forget to feel guilty you are eating your greens !! :P So if its been awhile since you made this, do it tonight !

Happy cooking,