Homemade Paneer

I used to dream of living on a small hobby farm somewhere in the middle of nowhere, making my own cheese and yarn from my herd of sheep. While the mysteriousness of the city has drawn me in, I sometimes still think about making my own cheese and spinning wool into luxurious yarn. 

I recently went on a road trip to Iowa and passed through the middle of nowhere. Not only does nowhere have a lot of nothing, but it also has a lot of quirky and fun.

This is "Art with a Porpoise." hehehe! Martin is feeding it the free cookie he got from simply checking into a cafe.

Trekkies should beam themselves to this future historic site.

Fountains in our area have not yet come out of their winter slumber, so I was excited to see the first fountain of the year!

The Iowan road trip reminded me that I don't have to live in the middle of nowhere to make my own cheese - I can make it in my own kitchen! After a little research, I discovered that making homemade cheese is actually really easy and fun!

After 101 Cookbooks posted her Saag Paneer recipe, I was inspired to make it with my own homemade paneer. Paneer is a simple fresh cheese commonly used in Indian dishes, my favorite being Navaratan Korma. It's texture is similar to fresh mozzarella but less stringy. Paneer has a really mild flavor, which is perfect in Indian dishes because it lets the complexly-seasoned sauce shine. 

The process for making paneer is really simple and it only requires two ingredients: whole milk and lime juice (or another similar acid). I was totally intimidated by making this cheese and I shouldn't have been. It was super easy.

Homemade Paneer

1. Put 1 quart of whole milk in a heavy bottom pot and bring to a solid simmer - just under boiling. Stir occasionally to prevent it from scalding on the bottom. Turn off the heat.
2. Add about a teaspoon of lime juice. This will cause the milk to curdle. Add another teaspoon to begin to separate the curds from the whey. Add 1-3 more teaspoons of lime juice to fully form the curds and leave a clear green liquid (whey). The amount of lime juice is contingent upon your lime's acidity. 
3. Let sit for about 5 minutes.
4. Line a medium-sized bowl with a cheese cloth. Pour the curds and whey into the cloth. Gather the sides of the cheese cloth together and tie off with a string. Hang the cheese for about 15 minutes. 
5. Press the cheese into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle using your hands and keeping it in the cloth. Set something heavy on top of the cheese - like a pot with a jar of dried beans. Let sit for about 1-2 hours.
6. It is now ready to be used in recipes. Most will call for it to be cut into squares and fried.

I'm still perfecting the texture of my paneer. I've read that it firms up even more if you chill it before using. 

The Saag Paneer recipe I followed called for a spice blend that was super delicious. I'm looking forward to using it in other dishes since I made much more than I needed for the paneer recipe.

From the bottom to the top the spice blend consists of: cumin seed, coriander seed, mustard seed, red pepper flakes, cardamom seeds, and cloves. Pure comfort food. :)

Chicago: List-free Bliss

My favorite part of our trip to Chicago was the fact that we had no plan. We never had anywhere that we needed to be by a certain time. Isn't that the best part of all vacations? I'm someone who lives by lists, often several in a single day. I love vacation because it breaks me from my routines and forces me to re-evaluate my habits. 

Because we enjoyed Nana's lunch so much the other day, we decided to check out their brunch too! Martin had the breakfast burrito, which was HUGE! He got it vegetarian so we could share plates.

I had the banana-granola pancakes. These were super sugary, but delicious. I had hoped the granola would be really great in pancakes, but I found it to just be a little too weird. Still, I had no problem eating them!

After brunch, we headed downtown without much of a plan at all. It was another cold, windy day in Chicago. :( This entire trip I wished I had my winter jacket. The temperature was only in the mid 40s most of the time with a biting wind (it is the windy city!). I found myself wearing nearly all my shirts every day. I eventually found some long knit half-gloves that helped to keep my hands warmer, which made a big difference.

We ended up spending most of the afternoon and evening on our final day in Chicago with Martin's college friend and his wife. We had a great time! We finally made it to the infamous "bean" sculpture in Millennium Park.

This is me take a picture from the center of the bean.

We also stumbled upon the Cultural Center, which used to be the public library. It had a beautiful Tiffany glass dome in the middle of the building.

As an added bonus, it had a free art exhibit called Morbid Curiosity. It reminded me a lot of Barebones' Halloween production because it had the same playful, reverent, and curious tone to exploring our mortality. It was pretty cool. 

We stopped in the Chicago Tribune Tower for some tea and played around in the Museum of Contemporary Art gift shop.

We eventually decided to have dinner at Sen Sushi Bar in Oak Park. I was so hungry, I forgot to take any pictures! There are some good pictures of the place on their website, however. I had the Futo Veggie Maki, which is a sushi roll with spinach, asparagus, cucumber, and avocado. It was fantastic! I gobbled them up in no time. What I didn't realize when I ordered is that the vegetarian sushi plates are half the size of the fish sushi plates... So, I ordered another plate! This time I had the Veggie Tempura Maki. Tempura is basically deep fried veggies. So this sushi roll had deep fried asparagus, sweet potato, and scallion. The best part was the spicy mayo. Yum!

We hopped on the Megabus at some ungodly hour this morning after standing in the rain for 45 minutes and arrived home to Oreo who was super excited to see us. A fantastic vacation and it's good to be home!