cook: indian dinner, sort of

My friend, Bob gave me a big ass block of paneer. Two pounds of Indian cottage cheese, which I told him, meant I would have to buy a big ass tub of baby spinach at Costco where he bought the paneer. I'm kind of pissed that he gave it to me. What the fuck? I can't eat two fucking pounds of cheese. I put a pound in the freezer, but I just read that you need to wrap it in Saran Wrap and then foil to prevent freezer burn. Well shit. I'm just gonna throw it away in the compost bin tomorrow. And I hate wasting food. I was supposed to go to the gym right after school and was too late to be on time to the group exercise class of jiujitsu, and so I went to Trader Joe's instead to buy jalapeno peppers to make the god damned homecooked palak paneer instead of buying the one-person portion-sized frozen entrée of palak paneer with basmati rice like I usually do. I am so annoyed.

At least I found this sweet mini bouquet of flowers at TJ's, and it's little bunches of flowers from the market which makes me happy and makes me want to make cute windowsill vases to contain them. Patrick brought home a bunch of daffodils and some orange blooms and arranged them in my other little glass vase.

Dinner took me 2 damn hours to cook. I cut half the paneer into small cubes and browned them in canola oil and then drained them of the excess grease.

 

My mise en place took forever to assemble.

And I cooked butter chicken in its yogurt marinade without cooking the makhani or sauce and basically sautéed chopped red onions with a bit of biriyani spice in ghee and then added the rice and water to cook because the palak paneer took such a long time for me to prepare. 

I think once my "Indian" cupboard is bare, I won't replenish ingredients because my home now smells like fenugreek. Yah, I'm tossing that dried herb too tomorrow. I wanted to have fun cooking tonight, but for some reason it was aggravating. I hate that I'm bitching so much, and so I'm not gonna cook this week and just eat leftovers and salads because I need to move my body and get my 2D main assignment done.