Indian eats

Cheese. I both love it and hate it for so many reasons.

For months now, I've been circling the idea of making cheese. But, real talk, that scares me a lot. I am not sure why. Scare is maybe not the right word here.  But it intimidates me, that's for sure.

However, after "circling around" this, I've finally started to dip my toe into the cheese-making water. I think Levent and my adventures of making Greek yogurt have eased my nerves a little when it comes to making dairy products. It is super easy and super good.

Still, when my friend, Jill Schlabach, and I decided that we wanted to make our own paneer, my irrational cheese fears rose to the surface once again. But, with the help of my friend, I overcame this fear... and crossed something off my 25th year of life bucket list: making cheese.

Paneer is actually super easy to make and not at all scary. We followed the instructions from Aarti Sequeira from the Food Network. It was pretty easy to follow. However I don't think we rinsed our cheese enough because it still had a lemony flavor. Also, I think we need to practice more. The inside of these paneer cheese were more like ricotta cheese than the paneer I've had at restaurants. Still, it was a lot of fun and is definitely something I want to make again.

Letting the cheese drain

The finished product

Broiled with a little paprika

To go with our freshly made paneer, we made this easy paneer tikka masala recipe from Soni's Food blog, (minus the marinating the paneer part since we did not have enough time for that). We also served up naan, rice, spinach and pears I canned last summer.

Overall, it was a wonderful evening of food and friends and chai beside the bonfire.

Jill's Chai box