Leftover Indian

Today's lunch is leftovers from last night, nuked in the work microwave. I made some saag paneer just because I love it (and it's a good way to use up milk that's getting to its use by date), and some kabocha and bean curry to add a bit of variety. It's a miserable day, so a hot lunch was lovely.


paneer = less than 175 Cal
spinach = 23 Cal
squash = 100 Cal
beans = 20 Cal
yoghurt = 80 Cal
oil = 50 Cal

total =448 Cal

Recipes:

Paneer
Heat 2 litres milk until almost boiling. Add 2 tablespoons natural low fat yoghurt and the juice of 2 lemons. Stir and allow to curdle. The whey should become transparent and a bit yellowish, if it remains white add a bit more lemon juice. Leave it for 5 minutes or so, then pour it into some muslin in a colander. Let it drain for a while, give it a squeeze, and leave it in the fridge overnight to drain some more.

Saag paneer
Cut the paneer into 2cm cubes.
Steam 500g of spinach.
Grate or finely chop some (about a 2cm cube, or whatever you like) root ginger, chop half an onion, a couple of green chillies, and 2 or 3 big cloves of garlic. Then put them in the blender and reduce them to a paste - you might need to add a bit of oil or water so it doesn't all stick to the side of the blender.
Put the onion etc. paste into a pan with a little oil and fry until most of the watery juice has evaporated - by which time it's cooked. Add a cup or so of natural low fat yoghurt, a teaspoon of salt, and 1/2 a cup of water, transfer it to the food processor with the spinach, and whizz the whole lot until it's as smooth as it'll get.
Return it to the pan, add the paneer cubes and heat it up gently. Taste it and add more salt if necessary.

This gives four portions, each of which has about 250 Cal. I've frozen it quite successfully, but you need to be careful when you reheat it because the paneer tends to melt - I quite like it like that though.

Kabocha and bean curry
Steam 1/4 of a kabocha (buttercup) squash until it's only just cooked. Peel it and cut it into 3 cm chunks. You can use any sort of squash or sweet potato, but you want to end up with about 3 cups of chunks.
In as small an amount of oil as you can manage, sautée a teaspoon of black mustard seeds, a teaspoon of cumin seeds, a teaspoon of ground coriander, and a teaspoon of grated ginger. Add a cup of 2 cm chunks of green beans and continue to cook for a few minutes. Then add the chunks of squash and cook a little longer. Add about 1/2 a cup of natural low fat yoghurt and salt to taste. Heat through.

This gives two portions of about 170 Cal. Haven't tried freezing it; I just made it up last night.

Boring shoes today - these are my comfy walking shoes that cost about $20 maybe six years ago. Cool tights though.


I wish I'd bought six pairs of these shoes.