Grilled Vegetables with Cilantro Sauce

It has been over a year now since I published my last post. Phew! what a year? Nothing in our life so far has been more exciting, exhilarating and exhausting, all at the same time. I call it the triple "E" effect. We are now blessed with a little baby girl, Myra. A lot of other changes have occured as well. First, I quit my job to be mom in chief (!), Pratik started working on his new post-doctoral position, my brother-in-law got married, my sister got married, we moved to a new city and to top it all, we made some exciting friends in our new town....families we truly like spending time with. What more could we ask for?

So now, as Myra is peacefully napping, I decided to get down to writing some serious stuff. You see, we have been cooking some great food inspite of the never ending everyday list of things to do with a now eight month old. However, coming up with something, taking good photographs and then blogging about it does require a lot of time. Right now things seem to have fallen back in shape and it looks like we are almost starting to follow some sort of schedule. But then again, this might not be my come back post. I will be blogging sporadically, Myra being my priority. Of course, I will brag about my new role as a mom in the posts to follow. Right now, I have exactly one hour before my little girl wakes up to play her 100th peek-a-boo adventure.

I hope you enjoy these delicious grilled vegetables and paneer as much as we did. The cilantro sauce adds freshness to the vegetables and paneer giving them a creamy texture. It is full of flavors and will warm your taste buds on a cold winter day. We ate ours with petite pita pockets but you can let your imagination run wild on how to serve them.

Grilled Vegetables and Paneer with Fresh Cilantro Sauce

Ingredients:

1 red bell pepper, cubed
1 yellow bell pepper, cubed
1 zucchini, cubed
1 yellow squash, cubed
1 carrot, cubed
1/2 cup of paneer, cubed
1/3 cup of butternut squash, peeled and cubed
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper

For the sauce-

1 cup of fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tbs olive oil
1 tbs plain yogurt
2-3 tbs mayonnaise
1 tsp maple syrup
2 tsp lemon juice
Salt & Pepper


Method:

Get your indoor grill pan screaming hot. Drizzle with some good olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan completely.

Grill all the vegetables evenly on all sides, tossing and turning every couple of minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove them from the grill pan onto a platter and then grill the paneer cubes until they turn golden brown. Season the paneer with salt and remove onto the platter.

Cilantro sauce:

Put all the ingredients for the sauce in a blender and blend together to make a fine paste.

Serving:

Serve on a big platter with the cilantro sauce kept in a bowl at the center. Alternately, toss the sauce with the grilled veggies and paneer and serve in a bowl. Goes well with charred pita pockets, tossed into some cooked pasta or on a bed of cooked wild rice or even as a side itself.

This recipe is packed with the fiber and vitamins from the vegetables, protein from the paneer, carbs from the pita bread or pasta. The cilantro in the sauce is a great digestive.

All in all, this recipe is quick, good and healthy for you!