Jul 19, 2006

GBP Summer 2006-July

I am sooooo happy to see so many of you guessed it right! Oh-ho! But I only have one trophy with me? Can you all please share? :-) . It is indeed Snake Gourd or Padavalanga in Malayalam.This is my GBP Summer 2006-July Entry. Recipe with Snake GourdHurry up folks! Just two more months for the Round up. I will post the Green Blog Project Summer Round up on October 1st.

If you still havent started your little garden, C'mon get a small pot, plant some parsley or thyme and keep it near your window (No excuses for not having a window!). Make some dish with that and send me your entries to, yes finally I created an email Id :-) greenblogproject AT gmail DOT com OR just post a comment on the GBP Summer Link.

Okay, I also want to hear stories about "Why it didnt grow?" too. Maybe we can see what happened. If you can take pictures, I could use that as a small sub heading in the Round Up Post.

I am really really happy, when someone sends me an entry from a patio or a window sill garden! I know the trouble you guys go through for that!

THANKS a million to a lot of sweet bloggers for spreading the Word. You guys are sooo sweet!

Guess the Flower - July 18.

Can you guess this flower? This produces a vegetable, we South Indians love but we rarely get it here in U.S and even if we get it, we have to pay through the nose. It is 5$ per pound here in Florida. If you can really guess this flower, I will award you with the "Green Guesser" Award :)Shape of this flower is very peculiar with tiny strings from each petals. Do you know?I really hope these guess posts give you lot if information about the vegetables or fruits we forget. At times, I think our next generations would end up thinking pineapple grows in a tree since it is an 'apple', since we see vegetables and fruits only on neatly arranged shopping isles these days.

1 comment:

Inji Pennu said...

32 Comments:
Priya Bhaskaran said...
All I can do is keep staring at the pictures...nothing is coming to my mind:)
Tue Jul 18, 10:14:00 AM 2006
renuramanath said...
hi, LG,
something has happened in india. the government, in the wake of the mumbai bombings, has blocked a large number of websites and blogs.

while many of the banned sites include those spreading religious hatred, unfortunately, all the bloggers especially those using blogspot are now unable to view the blogs. we can access the blogger dashboard, which is hosted from outside india, but not view the page.

now, we're using a page called pkblogs, to view the blocked blogs.

do try to protest this. while we do agree that spreading dangerous and vicious campaigns using the net at sensitive times should be checked, there's no point in shutting down the mouths of public opinion like blogs, that have served a great deal in times of calamity in india, including the floods and the recent blasts.
Tue Jul 18, 10:23:00 AM 2006
indosungod said...
LG you beat me to it, I took a picture of it this morning and was going to post it later, your pineapple story brings to my mind an incident my friends daughter thought that Milk came from a grocery store in bottles!! We saw glorious pineapple plants on our way to Kerela and also Jackfruit weighed down by fully grown jackfruits. I am not going to out away the vegetable name just yet!!
Tue Jul 18, 10:45:00 AM 2006
Angeleyes said...
As priya mentioned, I could keep staring at it. ... Nothing's really flasing up to my brains.

Can i take a guess though? Is it Drumstick... Moringa Oleifira(To be precise) :)

Anyways, just to introduce myself; I am a newbee here. Totally love this blog. Goodjob LG!
Tue Jul 18, 11:05:00 AM 2006
archana said...
Is it a peechinga( ridge gourd) or padavalanga (snake gourd) flower?
Tue Jul 18, 11:40:00 AM 2006
archana said...
Peechinga
Tue Jul 18, 12:01:00 PM 2006
Dream said...
It's snake gourd flower.
Tue Jul 18, 01:19:00 PM 2006
Priya said...
Podalangai ( Snake Gourd) ?????
Tue Jul 18, 01:34:00 PM 2006
Vineela said...
Hi LG,
Snake gourd my favourite.Potlakaya in telugu.
Tue Jul 18, 03:54:00 PM 2006
Shaheen said...
is it padavalanga?
Tue Jul 18, 04:27:00 PM 2006
Kitchenmate said...
pudalangai (snake gourd).. i googled and found flowers looks more alike, but since you referred it rare find in US, even found.. is expensive, it doesn't match with snakegourd.. so i am not sure!waiting for you to reveal it by yourself;)
Tue Jul 18, 04:49:00 PM 2006
ammoos said...
ladies finger?;-)
Tue Jul 18, 05:13:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...
LG,its Padavalanga botanically Trichosanthes cucumeroides.Cool picture.....

SB.
Tue Jul 18, 09:33:00 PM 2006
Priya said...
Hi LG, I'm going to go with Snake Gourd too, I just love that vegetable and have never found at stores near my place !! Hope the prize is followed by a pound of the veggie for the lucky one too..:-)
Tue Jul 18, 09:56:00 PM 2006
starry nights said...
I looked and I looked
I racked my brains
I looked through books
I looked in vain
but of no avail.
I have to stop
Before I drop.
I still dont know
what flower is atop.
Wed Jul 19, 12:05:00 AM 2006
Immigrant in Canada said...
Ok. I give up.. Methran thampi's famous farmer grand daughter has no clue..
Wed Jul 19, 01:48:00 AM 2006
Menu Today said...
Hi,
Is it snake gourd or suraikkai???
Wed Jul 19, 02:30:00 AM 2006
Menu Today said...
Hi,
Is it Yellow cucumber (Round shaped)
Wed Jul 19, 02:31:00 AM 2006
Sowjanya said...
As priya said, All I can do is keep staring at the pic. :-)
Wed Jul 19, 04:59:00 AM 2006
Krithika said...
It is snake gourd (pudalangai) flower. It is not that expensive in Texas.
Wed Jul 19, 07:35:00 AM 2006
Inji Pennu said...
Thank you all for guessing!You all have True Green Blood indeed! :-)

I am sorry if "rare in U.S and expensive" was misinformation. But wherever I stayed in U.S, I never got fresh ones and even If I get,
they were expensive. Really Sorry if it is not the case.
Wed Jul 19, 11:52:00 AM 2006
RP said...
I feel like to cry! None of my plants are doing any justice. All I got is some mint now…and some stuff like rosemary, sage, holy basil etc. Sweet basil is groiwing up very slow. I am also trying methi, cilantro, and tomato. They are growing like “naah, we don’t want to participate in GBP.” What can I do? Tomatoes always come good for me. But this year, they also cheated. It is true that I didn’t pay enough attention to the plants this year because of my toddler. She is destructive too. When I go out to water the plants, she follows me..plucks handfuls of leaves and takes a sniff and throws it away. So, I guess I have to come up with something that uses mint, rosemary, sage or holy basil. That makes it too complicated. Let’s see...
Wed Jul 19, 11:54:00 AM 2006
Immigrant in Canada said...
Rp: Have no fear.. I am hanging on to three beans in a single pot.. We initially had three bean plants.. My kids pulled two of them out of the soil each day to see how the roots are doing.. The third one.. I held on to it like a mother holding her son( for the dowry ofcourse!!!!)and fought like crazy.. "Stay off, keep off.. this is my one and only son..sorry bean plant" and so far it worked.. yesterday I counted.. there are three beans..yes three on the plant!!..
Wed Jul 19, 02:48:00 PM 2006
Vaishali said...
Thanks a lot, LG, for introducing me to the flower of this vegetable. I must say, the flower is too pretty for the vegetable that it grows into. Btw, I have recently cooked something with snake gourd. Will blog about it soon. And hey, I love that new profile pic of yours. :)
Wed Jul 19, 03:39:00 PM 2006
renuramanath said...
hi LG,
i've made a new post, as the Blogger dashboard is still available. But to view even my blog, I've to go through a proxy server. Do check my blog. Let's hope the situtaion would be normal soon.
renu.
Thu Jul 20, 02:31:00 AM 2006
indianadoc said...
I can only admire u'r snaps LG...for I am a lazy bone to do gardening...i just love to watch the beauty if someone does it for me!!...If it had not been for our gardener Derek,my garden would have looked miserable!!Kudos to u'r great cooking and u'r gardening!!
Thu Jul 20, 04:07:00 PM 2006
Tanuja said...
Hi Lg,

Can u tell which side is ur kitchen garden,I am going come silently to pluck ur potlakayalu I love this veggie.ur so lucky u grow this vegge at ur own garden.
Thu Jul 20, 10:42:00 PM 2006
renuramanath said...
LG, thanks for your comment on my blog. no luck blogwise. the same stalemate continues. still accessing through proxy servers.

no need of confusion regarding avial. just understand that cuisine too, just like culture, is never an unchanging monolith. it keeps on changing. and evolving. all i do is just try to trace the paths of evolution the food of kerala has passed through. that's what history is all about, you know.

the book i've quoted was written by someone who was born in the first decades of 20th century. so he knows much better than us about the social practices and customs of his times, ok ? we've to learn to accept documents like this from the past. true, malayalis have evolved avial to its present perfection. but it is also true that avial became widely accepted among the namboothiris of kerala only very lately. just like sambar and rasam. both were 'paradesi,' curries, means that which came from neighbouring places. across the borders.
avial could be equated with the 'kerala sari,' or the 'jubba - mundu,' costumes that now epitomises the kerala culture. both these dresses are actually modern inventions, dating back only to the sixtites, or fifties to the maximum. its 'keraleeyam,' only as far as a kameez or kurta or trousers-shirt combo could be termed as keraleeyam.
but, that's how
Fri Jul 21, 02:20:00 AM 2006
Luv2cook said...
LG:

I planted some plants in pots too. I have a huge tomato plant and an habanero pepper plant (that is producing peppers now). I also planted basil but that plant somehow died. May be I should post a picture to see "why it didn't grow"...hmmmm...
Fri Jul 21, 11:07:00 AM 2006
Deepa said...
Thanks LG for posting this flower picture. I have an unknown plant in my garden (unknown meaning, something sprouted from some seed I threw into a pot). We were looking at its pretty flowers and wondering what it is. Now I know it is a snake gourd plant. I have to wait and see if I get snake gourds.

I also want to add that you have a nice blog site and all your posts are very catchy. I read through your posts as I am also from Kerala and it is good to hear all those exotic food names which I prepare rarely but would love to eat more often.
Tue Jul 25, 05:38:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...
its i padavalanga(snake gourd)..if u ask y i am sure abt it is...the bud in the first pic and bud in the second r same...isn't it???hope i am right abt this...

Btw i am new to this blog..me also love cooking..the pics u put r really superb and mouth watering also!!!keep going....
Wed Aug 02, 04:07:00 PM 2006
Mel said...
Did you get my GBP entry? My main ingredient was basil.
Wed Aug 09, 04:23:00 PM 2006