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

Home Garden Veggie Tian

This is an adaptation of the French dish Tian, which mainly consists of vegetables, cut in circles and baked. By adaptation, I mean my version has sambar podi to liven things up for the Indian palate. What is special about this dish? It was made with homegrown, organic zucchinis, squash and tomatoes, the only outsider being potatoes. It is a very easy recipe to put together. The only suggestion I have after making it once, is to half boil your potatoes if you're adding them, since they take much longer to cook than the other vegetables. It's a colorful and extremely visually appealing dish and I hope you will attempt it in your kitchens. You can be sure to elicit the "wow"s from whomever you're serving it to.

Ingredients
Serves 10-12

2 large red tomatoes
2 large pink potatoes (peeled)
2 large zucchinis
3-4 medium/large squashes (very large squashes get too seedy)
2 Tbs sambar powder
1 cup of grated cheese (I used mozzarella and cheddar)
Garnish with herb of your choice (I used thyme and rosemary for this one)
Finely chopped spring onion chives
Oil spray
Salt to taste

Preparation

Peel potatoes.
Cut every vegetable (and fruit) in 1/4 inch thick circles.
Cook the potatoes in the microwave for about 5-6 minutes.
Prepare your baking pan by spraying it with olive oil.
Set the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Separate the circles by vegetable and keep them apart.
Mix sambar podi with salt and sprinkle it over each of the veggie discs.
Arrange them in the pan in the order of your preference, alternating colors.
Bake this for 25-30 minutes.
Reduce the heat of the oven to 350 degrees.
Now pull the dish out.
Add the herbs and chives first and top it with the cheese.
Cook at 350 for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is golden brown.

Enjoy by itself, or with freshly baked French bread.
Until next time,
Au Revoir!