Mutter fookah!

One of my favorite places to shop, both for the range of offerings and the price, is the India Market in the strip mall by La Mexicana (you know, the old Pickles place). 

For a semi-homemade meal from there you can still eat well.  Jefe’s fave is the Mutter Paneer.  Paneer is a cheese , and the rest is peas in a nice little sauce of tomatoes, milk, onion, sour cream, and whatnot spices.  The purchased part is a frozen entree – the homemade part is instant rice.  I know that’s barely, marginally homemade, but compared to takeout which you had NO part in, it’s slightly moreso.  If you were really bad, you could still screw up the rice.

 

First, take your Deep Foods frozen Mutter Paneer and remove it from the package.  Puncture the film over the top 3 or 4 times.  Nuke it for 2 or 3 minutes, peel back the film to stir, and cook for a couple more minutes.

In the meantime, cook your rice as you choose.  If you have the time and want real rice, start it first, obviously.  On nights that we’re crunched and tired but don’t want take out food yuk-ness, this is fast and actually has nutritional value – the paneer will get you Vitamins A & C, Calcium, Protein and Iron.  Not bad for 5 minutes.

What’s not to love about fast, easy and tasty?  If you snag a package of frozen garlic-naan when you’re there and crisp those babies up in the oven with a light brush of butter, you’re in a good way, dinner-wise.  The selection of ready-made meal items there is pretty great and they’re not ridiculously loaded with sodium and fat like so many microwave options.  Prices are right in line with comparable items at another grocery store, though one of my only complaints with them is that I never get a receipt, so I’m not always sure what each item cost.  Meh, I don’t care that much, I guess.