I recently returned from an amazing holiday to the Arabian Coast, to a place called Goa, India. I were celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday, and chose a special place called Pousada-Tauma to stay at, (mostly because all the trip-advisor reviews raved about the owner Neville and his hospitality, and because they had a chef there who promised to make a chocolate birthday cake). What an incredible 5 days of bliss…it was like staying in the Garden of Eden, really, and the food there was absolutely off the hook! Almost every day we had this salad, called the Pousada Salad, and I’ve tweaked it a little by using Paneer instead of cheese, and adding some garbanzo sprouts, just a little, into the mix…The vegetables are all very low-calorie density carbs, and as I only used about 2 Tablespoons of the chickpea sprouts, their contribution to total carbs was also very, very low. If I wasn’t dialing in, I would have also added some toasted nuts as well, but that can wait til after the shows…Paneer, by the way, is just pressed cottage cheese, a very rich source of protein, low in milk sugars, and just plain delicious. If you can’t find paneer at your local grocery store, you can make your own simply by hanging cottage cheese for 10 minutes in some cheese cloth to remove the water, and then pressing it into a container with a weight on top!
what you need for the 
dressing:
2 tsp rice wine vinegar or other soft vinegar
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
juice of 1/2 small lime or lemon
1 teaspoon of minced shallot
salt and pepper to taste
for the sala
d:
6 or 7 black olives, sliced
6 sweet cherry tomatoes, cut in half
2 Tablespoons of sprouted chick peas
1 small cucumber, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1″ pieces
1/2 red and 1/2 yellow bell pepper, cut into 1 ” pieces
3 – 4 oz of paneer, cut into 1″ cubes
2 teaspoons of masala spice
Simple put the ingredients for the dressing into the bottom of your salad bowl and then start composing the salad. First, put a non-stick skillet on medium-high heat, add a bit of olive oil and salt to the pan, brought it up to heat and lay down the paneer cubes. While that is browning, start to cut up all the vegetables and add them to the salad bowl as they are done. This clears out the cutting board and helps you to move more efficiently. Quickly toss everything together when you’re done, and adjust the seasoning if needed. About every couple of minutes you should have turned the paneer with a fork so that all sides get a nice golden color, and when finished, Enjoy!!
