Swiss Chard & Beet Greens Kootu (stew)

What has become of me? I seem unable to get the right moment to sit and blog - Heaven knows, with the veggie garden producing hearty veggies, I have been cooking up a storm. Something to be said for the lazy hazy crazy days of summer! Kids around, chillaxing when we are not hustle around the garden or doing other "summery" things, like keeping up late and trying to sleep in late - an impossibility with my rooster husband who wakes up the sun! So much so, the layers of lethargy that has built up is so high, it needs super will power to knock it down and get down to being productive in the blog world. My interest in cooking remains alive and steady. And, my experiments continue, especially with the homegrown veggies.  And it is with pride I present to you this super food in a most delectable stew or kootu

Beet greens (which are red, lol) and the ever so colorful and beautiful swiss chard together make for an excellent combination. Couple those with coconut and spices and man, have you made yourself a healthy dish that is a perfect combination with either rice or chapatis.

Here is my simple recipe

Ingredients

• 2 cups of chopped swiss chard
• 1 cup of Beets greens chopped fine
• 1 beet chopped fine (I threw this in since I had it)
• 1bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp of black pepper
• 1 red chili to grind and 1 to saute
• 1/4 cup coconut powder/ or grated coconut
• 1/2 cup of cashew, hazelnut, & almond milk (optional) (available in TJ's)
• 1 tsp of coconut /sesame oil) for cooking and 1 for tempering
• 2 cup of water

Method

1. In a saucepan, lightly fry the coconut, chili pepper and bay leaf in a tsp of oil
2. Pour a cup of water and grind and set aside
3. To the same pan, add the greens  and stir for a couple of minutes 
4. Add 1 cup of water and allow it to cook for a few minutes 
5. At this point, add the salt and stir in
6. Now add the ground coconut mix and allow all of it to come to a boil or two.
7. Remove from flame and transfer to a serving bowl
8. Temper with a tsp of oil some mustards seeds, cumin and 1 red chili
9. Serve with couscous, rice or chapatis.

Rainbow Chard & Veggie Casserole With Paneer

This was a pleasurable dish to make. I had this super colorful Swiss Chard that I’d bought at Whole Foods. And I had all my garden veggies and was planning on some really interesting dish. It was the same morning that Radhika emailed me the secret ingredient for our Avant Garde Cookies posting and it was Paneer… I had made some a few days before and this seemed like the perfect garnish/addition to this veggie medley.  What’s more I even had my béchamel sauce that I’d blogged the day before and I thought it would make a perfect addition to the dish.

Here is my recipe.

Ingredients

• Basically this can be done with any veggies or greens of your choice
• I used Rainbow Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes, onions, orange and yellow bell peppers, green chilies (optional) – I also had some snake gourd I chopped up and used.
• 1tbsp olive oil
• 1cup of béchamel sauce (use any other sauce of your choice)
• 1tsp curry powder (optional)

Method

1. Stir-fry the veggies in about ½ tbsp. of olive oil
2. Place this is a baking pan neatly
3. I used the béchamel sauce to top my stir-fried veggies (I sprinkled some curry ma powder on top)
4. Sautee the paneer in another 2 tsp of olive oil – I used some curry powder and salt to spice it up a bit
5. Arrange the paneer on the top
6. Add some cheddar if you like
7. Bake for about 25-30 minutes at 350 F
8. Garnish with Fresh Cilantro

The pictures are self-explanatory.

Enjoy with noodles or just by itself.

 

 This is off to Avant Garde Cookies

This is for the Avant Garde Cookies Group. In this venture with me are  Anusha, Jayanthi,Kavi, Priya Sreeram, Radhika Roshni and Veena