A guide to ruining your diet with Sushi and Indian food!

I've been being really good about eating less. I promise.

And then I had a delicious Sushi lunch at Fulin's (http://www.fulins.com/) with my brand new, awesomesauce buddy Meredith and our total of four kids.

Yum!

** Chicken run: I'm no restaurant critic, so I am going to pass on a few negative points of our visit.. well, most of them. I will say that our food took 45 minutes to get to the table. That can actually be a little scary in a Sushi restaurant anyways- but when you have a 1 year old, two 2 year olds, and a mildly sick 8 year old it just plain ol' SUCKS! Alright, I'm done now :) **

Back to Yum! I ordered a sushi combo type plate; 2 rolls of your choise, plus soup and salad. I was so pleased that they didn't ONLY offer the obligatory California and Crunchy Shrimp rolls for my choices! There were at least 6 viable options, and I chose my two very favorite maki, Negi Hamachi (Yellowtail and Scallion) and Spicy Maguro (Tuna). Woohoo!

The salad was standard Ginger dressing fare, but delicious. Can't say the same for the water, oh- I mean Miso soup. Didn't even matter when my maki came out though! For $8.95 it was a steal. Very fresh, very firm, perfectly balanced flavors. Mmmmm! Now if my 2 year old hadn't stolen half my rolls...

Alas, that was where my diet derailed. And then:

Tonight, I said "Screw it!"

I have a favorite Indian buffet in Elliston Place, Sitar (http://www.sitarnashville.com/) but haven't been able to go there lately. Buffets aren't conducive to good dieting. So naturally I was fiending.

My favorite Indian dish of all time is Mutter Paneer with Garlic Naan. In the past I have failed at great naan, so I left that off the table for the night. Not that I've given up, but I didn't feel like coddling a yeast dough at the moment.

I googled Mutter Paneer, (http://www.indianfoodforever.com/) and this is how I proceeded:

** Slight disclaimer- I use recipes as a skeleton, and that is why I am terrible at baking pastry. I only write down the ingredients, and maybe a note or two on method, then I wing it **

I put on some Valencia rice in the steamer, which requires a 3:1, so ya know!

I sweated an onion, a thumb of fresh ginger, and about 6 cloves of garlic that I had pickled. Ironically, I used all my fresh garlic on the Bagna Cauda from last night! I like to pickle both garlic and okra something fierce, but that's for another day.

After that I chopped up most of a tomato I had laying around in my fridge, added a bit of tumeric and coriander, and simmered on low.

In the mean time, I was boiling some speckled lima beans for my dish- simply because I love lima beans. I had added only salt and some prepared roasted garlic that I had experimented in buying. A note, I was not impressed with the preroasted garlic.

I tossed in a bit of the bean cooking liquid to loosen my Mutter Paneer, and buzzed it with an immersion blender... continuing to let it simmer.

Multitasking as I so often do, I started the Paneer cheese by adding approximately a pint and a half of milk to a sauce pan, salted and scalded it, and added 1 tablespoon of vinegar. VERY gently stirring, I brought it back to a boil.

I removed it from the heat as it began to curdle, and let it rest as I added some condensed milk to my Mutter Paneer.

At this point my rice and my Mutter Paneer are about ready, so I unplugged my cooker, added frozen peas to the curry, and turned off the heat. I gave her a little taste and decided it needed some zing, so I splashed some of the flat champange I was drinking into it. Did the trick right nicely!

And then, it was time for the Paneer cheese. I didn't have any cheese cloth!!! (Oops)

Yep, I broke the rules again to get around this problem... I washed and rinsed out a clean babywipe, clothespined it to a strainer, and poured my curds and whey into the contraption. When they had drained most of the way, I manipulated it into a rectangle and weighted the cheese with a coffee can for about 10 minutes. I suppose you should do it longer, but whatever!.

After a bit, I cut and incorporated my Paneer cheese, and viola!

YUM!! (not meh at all, although I missed my damn naan)

XOXO,
Your Pin Up Gastronaut
Voodoo Valentine