Cottage Cheese and Pesto Dipping

There are times I go the store and try to get something you wont find very often in my fridge and hope kids will get to eat it :). Well, few weeks back I picked up cottage cheese. Offered kids and hoped they will like it.. but no, they didn't even wanted to look at it. The name didn't sound like something yummy, not to mention they are not big fans of eating anything from a plastic container...this is another story to tell...
After a while, I was determine to finish the cheese before it gets bad and came up with an idea that changed even my kids minds :) I made a dip with the cottage cheese and all time favorite pesto! The dip finished in seconds and all agreed we should get more of that cheese!!

Ingredients:

4oz cottage cheese
3 table spoon pesto
1 Table spoon olive oil
salt

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend well - mine was ready in less than a minute.

Optional:
 You can try adding black olives or roasted red pepper. I did experiment on this little and loved the result with the roasted pepper.

Garnish with fresh herbs you have on hand and get some fresh veggies to tip in :)
Enjoy!

Home made Indian cheese - panir

Panir is a cheese used in vegetarian Indian dishes. Can be frozen easily for months.

Ingredients
1/2 gallon whole milk

1/4 cup white vinegar or lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt- optional

Method:

Boil the milk on med flame to avoid burning. Once the milk is boiling, add the vinegar and mix well. Next, the milk will start to curdle and separate from the whey water. The whey water should be very light yellow in color. If the milk is not curdled well (the liquid still looks white, not yellow water) add a teaspoon of vinegar at a time until you start seeing the water separating from the curdle. keep the flame on until the curd and whey water separate completely. Turn the heat off and let it all cool down little bit, 20-30 mins.
Strain through cheese cloth in a strainer. Tide the cheese cloth very tide around the panir and let the water drain  for about 4-5h. or over night.  Once the panir fills firm and the water is drained place something heavy on top of it and keep all in the fridge. The panir will be ready to cook the next day. You can freeze it as a whole piece or cut into cubes.
The salt may be added right after the panir is poured into the strainer and mixed in slowly with spoon or just hand.

Enjoy

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