Thekla McDaniels

Saag Panir… now that you have your spice blends prepared! (saag might mean spinach.  Any greens are appropriate:  spinach, kale, chard, beet greens pak choi, etc

List of ingredients
2 tablespoons oil
one medium size red onion thinly sliced
Six medium size cloves garlic, coarsely, chopped

Four lengthwise slices of fresh ginger each 2 inches long 1 inch wide 1 inch inch thick, coarsely chopped
2 teaspoons Bin Bhuna
1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
2 tablespoons tomato paste
At least 1 pound of fresh greens well rinsed and coarsely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
1 1/4 pounds of Panir cut into 1 inch cubes and pan fried
1/2 cup cream
1/2 teaspoon Punjabi Garam masala

These are the directions:

Heat the oil in a large skillet
Add onion, garlic, and ginger and stirfry until the onion is light brown, 8 to 10 minutes.  

Remove skillet from heat, stirring in the Bin Bhuna, Garam masala, and the turmeric.

Transfer the mixture to a blender jar add the tomato paste and a fourth of a cup of water. Purée scraping the inside of the jar as needed to form a smooth, reddish brown paste. Return the paste to the skillet add 3/4 of a cup of water to the blender jar and whir to wash it out.  Add the water to the skillet.

Place the skillet over medium heat, pile handfuls of the greens into the skillet. Cover it and let the steam wilt the greens. Stir and repeat with remaining greens. When they are all wilted, cover the skillet and cook stirring occasionally until the greens are broken down to a sauce like  consistency, and are olive green in color. About 10 to 15 minutes.

Stir in the salt, fried panir cubes cream and Punjabi Garam masala.   Continue simmering the curry, covered, stirring occasionally until the cheese and cream are warmed through, about 5 to 8 minutes.

Serve

Authors note: you’ll notice that I use two Garam masalas here in different ways. Initially you add the untoasted blend early on to make sure the raw spices cook, providing this first spice layering. Then you swirl in the toasted garam masala towards the end.  This blend is a finishing spice and does not need to cook since you already toasted it. This yields a second tier of flavors that are aromatic, smooth and assertive. Both blends contain similar spices, but what you did with them at various stages creates a complex tasting sauce.

Recipe for coriander scented un toasted blend, also called Bin Bhuna Hua Garam masala

This blend is a perfectly acceptable alternative in any recipe that calls for a commercial curry powder

2 tablespoons coriander seeds,
1 teaspoon cumin, seeds,
1 teaspoon black peppercorns,
1/2 teaspoon whole cloves,
1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds from green or white pods
2 dried bay leaves
three or four dried red thai or cayenne chilies stems removed, to taste, or 1 teaspoon cayenne ground red pepper

Place all the ingredients in a spice grinder and grind until the texture resembles that of finally ground black pepper

Store the mixture in a tightly sealed container for up to two months.
Authors note: refrigerating the blend adversely affects its flavors.

Recipe for warming spice blend, also called Punjabi Garam masala
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon whole cloves
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon cardamom seeds from black pods
Three cinnamon sticks each 3 inches long, broken into smaller pieces
Three fresh or dried bay leaves


Preheat a small skillet over medium high heat add all the spices and bay leaves and toast shaking the skillet every few seconds until coriander and cumin seeds turn reddish brown the Closed peppercorns and cardamom turn ash black, the cinnamon and bay leaves a pure brittle and crinkly and the mixture is highly fragrant. About 1 to 2 minutes.

Immediately transfer the nutty smelling spices to a plate to COOL. The longer they sit in the hot skillet the more likely they will burn making them bitter and unpalatable
Once they are cool to the touch, place them in a spice grinder and grind until the texture resembles that I’ve finally ground black pepper. If you don’t allow the spices to cool the ground blend will acquire unwanted moisture from the heat, making the final blend slightly kinky. The ground blend will be reddish brown and the aroma will be sweet and complex Store in a tightly sealed container away from excess light heat, and humidity for up to two months.

I use tree hoops as illustrated above, except I use “6, 6, 10, 10”.

Its heavy gauge wire grid designed for reinforcement in concrete slabs.  The holes are 6 inch squares, I think the wire in both directions is 10 gauge, it’s welded steel.

It also makes good trellises 😊.  

Whoa!  I am on break,  inside.  Just thought I would look into this awesome book.  It must be out of print or something!  The used paper backs are around 50 US dollars!

Tereza, how did you know I am a retired nurse?🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

I will post recipe later today.

And here’s the cookbook!  Probable cheap used if the shipping isn’t outrageous.  35 pastes and spice blends.

How to make panir and yogurt.  It’s a complete course in Indian cooking!

I wonder if anyone has tried this!  I have been putting cinnamon and nutmeg in Kate Downhams sourdough chocolate cake recipe, and thought gingerbread might be delicious

Got any suggestions, or a clue where the sourdough conversion is on permies.

Thanks!

I didn’t read the whole thread…. Found this while looking for something else!

I bet you’re going to get more recipe ideas than you want to use in a few weeks time!

What I do when leafy greens are plentiful: chard kale beet greens spinach….

I wash them, shake the water off, then put in a freezer proof container or plastic bag.  I put the bag in the freezer when the leaves are frozen solid, I crunch them up with my hands.  They’re a lot more compact for storage.  They’re pre-chopped and recipe ready.  I remove the stems and midribs for separate use.

I guess not everyone has a freezer, or electricity!  Sorry I don’t have a more universal answer.  Drying would also postpone the abundance.  I buy dried nettles and dried spinach when fresh is not available.  Texture is changed, but it’s food.

Another idea:  saag panir uses LOTS of greens.  Have a party and feed people saag panir.  Or make saag panir and give it to other households!  Or, freeze the excess saag.  Add the panir later.

I have a cook book with a good recipe.  It requires that you make 2 different curry powders from scratch!  It’s a good recipe and I will post it if there’s interest.

Matthew Nistico wrote:Generally speaking, trees will unexpectedly drop leaves like that under environmental stress.  In my experience, this usually means too hot and/or too little water.  I have planted many black locusts on my property, which is right at the edge of their native range.  I see a few around my area, but mostly they begin appearing 30-minutes by car further up the mountains.  Predictably, on my land they drop leaves by the end of summer, only to regain them as cooler autumn weather sets in, only to loose them again over winter.

While this is clearly a stress response, it is not enough to seriously hurt the trees - they still grow like black locusts, which is to say like weeds.  Were I in an even warmer zone, doutbless I'd have trouble growing them at all.  But by the same logic, the stress response is specific to these trees based on their growing preferences.  I have seen a similar pattern in currants and gooseberries I've planted, similarly at the very edge of their tolerance for hot conditions, but not with countless other species more well adapted to my zone.  That doesn't mean there is anything "weird" about the weather, only that certain species can handle it while others struggle.  Whereas the black locusts are clearly winners for me, despite their challenges (and their thorns!), I've yet to decide if I shall give up on the gooseberries or keep trying to nurse them along at the edge of their ability to thrive.

BTW, I have noticed that now, in mid-August 2026, my black locusts have yet to loose their leaves.  This has been a fairly cool and notably wet summer for me.  Surely, that is no coincidence.

Of course, the pattern described above assumes that your plants suddenly dropping leaves out of season will in fact bounce back at a later date.  If they drop leaves suddenly and then die, it may well have nothing to do with their climate tolerance; they probably contracted some virus.  Of course, having said that, if they exist in a stressed state due to extreme heat relative to their preferences, they were likely more susceptible to disease in the first place by virtue of being stressed.

Thanks for posting this on black locusts Matthew.  I planted some seedling black locusts earlier this year.  I would have been worried anout what might have happened if you hadn’t told me their leafdrop and regrowth habit!

Hmmm, all these trees from various backgrounds!  We’re lucky to have such diverse trees for our planting pleasure!

Norway maples, box elders, gingko and redwoods are from different ecosystems, different regions of the world and adapted to different conditions, and just like all us permies in our different situations, trees from China, Norway, west coast North America are not necessarily going to respond to various conditions identically.

But good job on noticing the variations occurring.  Let’s build up a data base, and we’ll get to the point where we can be “citizen scientists”, generate and maybe test hypotheses.

I don’t know about the rest of its native range, but box elders are native here.  They grow as part of the riparian community.  And we can get hot and dry in the summer.  So, just conjecture, but it appears box elders are adapted to hot and dry spells if they have adequate water, while 100% guessing on this next part, Norway maples maybe developed in a more humid and not so hot conditions.  Dropping leaves can be an adaptation to too hot and too dry, that might occur immediately or be delayed.  

And as mentioned up thread, there are trees that go as far as they can through the annual summer dry spell then drop all their leaves and wait until spring before leafing out again.  California Buckeye is the one I know from childhood.