Mutter paneer to entice a dear baby out

What do these things have in common?

1. Raspberry leaf tea
2. Acupuncture
3. Pineapple
4. Bouncing
5. Long walks
6. Sex
7. Hot curry

They are all promised to help entice overdue babies out. And in my opinion none of them work. As anyone who’s ever gotten anywhere near their due date (and/or gone past it) will tell you, helpful people start to offer advice as to how to get the baby to make his/her appearance as you near 40 weeks. Go past 40 weeks and people fall over themselves to ask you highly personal information about how much sex you’re getting and gulp… if you’ve tried nipple stimulation. The lack of privacy starts before the labour ward.

My lovely, dear friend Alison is about to give birth to her second baby. She’s due this weekend. This one’s for you Alison. Though you need to add more chilli as I’ve heard that it might help induce labour… especially if you eat it whilst having sex and bouncing on a ball and with a pineapple chaser…

Ingredients:

• 500g paneer
• 350g frozen peas
• 2 medium onions
• 1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 1 inch worth of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 green finger chilli
• a splash of veg oil
• 1 tsp salt

Heat a splash of oil in a large frying pan and fry the paneer until starting to sizzle and brown. Once it’s done scoop it out and set aside on some kitchen roll. Turn the heat down and add the peeled and chopped onion with the salt. Fry on a low heat until soft and almost translucent. Then add the spices including the chilli (finely chopped including the seeds) and the ginger and chilli. After another 5 mins add the tinned tomatoes. Fill the tin back up with water and add this to the pan. Turn the heat up and give it a really good stir. When it starts to thicken a little add the paneer back in and also the frozen peas. Leave to simmer away for around 15 minutes until you have a yellowy cheesy pea stew. (I think it might need to be renamed cheesey peas given that our local curry house would likely laugh at my interpretation of mutter paneer.)

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