Pumpkin with Red Moong Beans

Guess which food blogger has never cooked with something good and delicious like pumpkin?

Clue: We all love her to death…This post is for her. When you correctly guess I will keep a link :)

Excerpt from the link: The bright orange flesh of pumpkin is loaded with beta-carotene. This vitamin is an important antioxidant that helps us fight free radicals.This is called Erisseri in some places which I think is not right :-).

As spicyana corrected me once, Erisseri gets it name from erikkuka, which is the last process of erisseri where coconut is fried and added. This dish is not prepared like that.Pumpkin diced into 2 inch pieces – 3 cups, Red Moong Beans – 1 cup (soaked over night and cooked or cooked in a pressure cooker without soaking) Grind 1 cup grated coconut with ¼ tsp turmeric powder, 1 tsp red chili powder, 6 garlic pods, ½ tsp cumin seeds. Grind to a fine paste.

Cook the pumpkin covered in little water and when half cooked, mash them lightly and add cooked red moong beans and the ground paste along with 2 cups of water. Cook in medium heat uncovered.When it is cooked, heat 1 tsp of oil, splutter ¼ tsp mustard seeds, sauté 2 sprigs of curry leaves and sauté 2 dried red chili split into two.You will love this! Serve with rice or roti.

Shredded Chicken

My dear friend ‘I’ who was actually a very novice cook taught me this wonderful recipe.

Shredded Chicken. This is exceptionally good and I love chicken made this way. People love this with wine or alcohol as an appetizer.

4 cups of chicken breasts (trim any fat) diced into two inch pieces, boiled in ¼ cup water with salt and 1 tbsp of vinegar. Cook covered for first ten minutes, then cook open and let the water completely evaporate.
When cooled, shred the chicken with your hand into strips. This is very easy. Do not use a food processor.

2 cups of Onion diced thin. 2 springs of curry leave, 7 green chilies, 2 tbsp of peppercorns. That’s it. It is so simple but delicious!

Heat 1/8 of olive oil, sauté the onions and green chilies slit well until light brown. Add the shredded chicken. Add the crushed peppercorn and mix. Now, keep in medium flame, sprinkle some oil around 2 tsp and sauté this again. Sauté well for around ten minutes until the shredded strips looks a little brownish.Serve with rice or roti or as an appetizer.

Bittergourd Theeyal

Tired attending the parade?
Let me make you some rice and theeyal? :-)

I think every Malayalee has a slightly different way of preparing theeyal. It is a very Kerala type dish.Theeyal can be made with so many different vegetables and ulli theeyal (shallots) is the most delicious one.I make it usually with bitter gourd. As we all know bitter gourd is so good for you and when prepared as theeyal, its bitterness doesn’t bother you.Bittergourd deseeded - 2 diced into bite sized pieces about 3 cupsCoconut - 1 cup.
Shallots diced – ¼ cup, Curry leaves – a sprig, Coriander seeds(or powder) – 2 tsp, Chili powder – 2 tsp

Heat ¼ tsp coconut oil and fry the coconut and shallots(shallots is very important) until light brown in color. I actually don’t fry them in oil. I don't like too much oil so I dry roast them. Sauté curry leaves also for one minute.

Add coriander seeds to this, sauté well. Add chili powder and ¼ tsp turmeric powder and take off from fire. Grind to a smooth paste.

Soak a 1 inch square sized tamarind in warm water.Heat 1 tsp coconut oil. Splutter mustard seeds and 1 sprig of curry leaves. Sauté 1 tsp of diced shallots and add bitter gourd to this. Fry the bitter gourd until it the skin light brownish. Add the strained tamarind water to this and the ground paste.

When the curry thickens, remove from fire. Set it aside for 15 minutes. Theeyal stays good the next day without refrigeration.Serve with rice or dosa, idli, appam etc.

See Priya's Theeyal

My India, My Country

When idea-girl Indira came up with the theme of Independence, I wanted to write about some food that would be equally pleasing to North, South, East and West. Nah! I was not at all successful. I think we might agree on Kashmir some day, but not on a common food likeable by all of us.

The thought of food made me think of a great man who fasted seventeen times for all of us. Without him we Indians cannot mention the word freedom. Without his non-violence and leadership our freedom would have been a lot more bloody and our country would have turned a hell. Without his guidance and willpower, our leaders would have been lost with a huge country with so many different languages and cultures.

When British left us, we were robbed to the last penny. Famine and violence were everywhere.When they left us, they wished, we ‘uncivilized’ Indians would fight among ourselves and would disperse and they could laugh at that.

We might be a little poor, we might be a little corrupt, and we might have lot of follies of a nation celebrating only the 60th Independence Day.

Yet, we are surviving…beautifully! We are having the last laugh.

India has gained respect in the eyes of others. We didn’t do that by bombing another nation or demeaning another country. We did it with our passion and internal strength. For that, I am a lot thankful.

Thinking of fasting, it occurred to me that Gandhiji ended his fasting with nimbu pani. Yes, a simple sweet lemon juice.So, I made lemon juice…in a different way. It is called bonji in Trivandrum, Kerala. The fun part is equal amount of sugar and salt is added. It gives the lemon juice a very special taste. It is mainly available in small shack teashops. Since sugar is beaten well to dissolve with a steel spoon against the steel glass and it makes a taka taka noise and this process is called bonji adikkal which translates somewhat to beating bonji :-)

To celebrate our hard-earned freedom we need something sweet. Distributing sweets to near and dear is our common way of celebrating any happy occasion across India.

So, I made payasam. Kerala's own 'Pal Payasam'. God's own Country's special!
This sweet dessert is made with matta red rice.
Bring 3 cups of milk to a boil. Add ½ cup of sugar. Add 1 cup of washed rice. Let the rice cook in this. Add 1 tsp of cardamom powder.Heat 1/8 cup of ghee. Sauté 2 tbs of raw cashew nuts and 2 tbs of raisins. Add to the payasam.Serve as a dessert.

Freedom is sweet. Wishing and hoping every child on this earth would enjoy freedom!

Uruli

This cooking pot is called uruli in Malayalam. It was normally made of bronze and now is available in aluminum which was easier for me to carry. It is very useful for frying or making payasams. It has a large surface area and a wide open mouth. Look at the peculiar shape. I don’t know whether the shape has any significance.

Made Avalos Podi in this. The large ones are now used for decorative purposes representing a small pond.

This is for Indira's Indian utensils series.

Guess the plant? It is Ginger!

This is a very easy one. Clue is spread all over my blog!! hehehe :).

Everyone of you guessed it! Ah! I should'nt have left the clue. Thanks a lot guys!

GBP Summer 2006 - August - Amarapayaru Thoran (Hyacinth bean stir fry)

Finally, it happened! No, the sky didn’t fall nor did pigs fly…but my computer crashed. My PC’s motherboard gave upon me. Enough blogging, it protested! pretty vehemently this time.

But, hey I am back again…and it feels so good. Well, maybe you guys didn’t notice :), but I didn’t blog for ten days. Ah! What a loss to the blogging world..hehehehe.. Just kidding!

Now, dear non bloggers, if you don’t have a blog, but have a pot and a plant and a recipe; please do email me your pictures at, greenblogproject AT gmail DOT com.

Folks, hurry up! Summer is about to get over in a month. I will be posting entries on October 1st. If you have not received a reply from me, I haven’t got your entry yet. Let us all have fun and turn the blogs green on that day!

Here is my last GBP-Summer 2006 entry.This is called amarapayaru in Malayalam and Hyacinth bean in English. If you have a tree in your yard, I request you to grow this vegetable. It is so easy to grow, a prolific producer and rich in nutrients, fiber and vitamins. Moreover, it is disease resistant by nature. This also grows anywhere and will enrich your soil with nitrogen. It is a climber. So you can just plant them around a tree and it produces such pretty and long lasting flowers, the flowers are used for decorating too. Or you could just grow this as an ornamental plant in your flower garden too. Mix the violet and the white and you have long lasting flowers in your garden.I planted both the white and the purple. I don’t recommend the red variety since it is very hard to get it to produce. Don’t know why. Right time to pluck the bean is when the skin is smooth and the seeds haven’t started to protrude beneath the skin.

You have to string the beans.Then dice them thin.
For 3 cup diced beans,
Heat 2 tsp of oil; splutter ¼ tsp of mustard seeds, sauté two split dry red chilies, sauté 2 sprigs of curry leaves and ½ cup diced shallots or onion. To this add ¼ tsp turmeric powder and 6 green chilies split.

When the shallots turn translucent, add the diced beans, add salt and sprinkle 2 tbsp water. Cover and cook in medium to low flame.

When 3/4th cooked, crush ¼ cup fresh grated coconut with 2 garlic pods and add to this and cover the grated coconut with the beans and cook for another 6 or 7 minutes in low flame.Rice and beans packed in lunch box.Serve it with rice or roti.

Avalos Podi (Rice Flour Snack)

When JFI Flour was announced, I wanted to make something flour-y to project the theme.What else other than Avalos podi? Flour, that you can eat?

How many jars of Avalos podi, we, ever-moving Keralites would have taken to hostels or homes abroad, to eat with a little sugar or a simple banana? If you pass by my home in Kerala and get the whiff of avalos podi frying, you can be sure someone is leaving the next day. What other snack is there, which is simple to make, stores very well yet so filling and needs very simple accompaniments?

'Podi' means flour in Malayalam. No clue what Avalos means. Maybe it is the creator’s name?This is a very simple recipe and a good snack item. This will store good for 6 months if done properly.

Raw Rice Flour coarsely ground to sooji like consistency (If you don't get raw rice in that consistency, soak raw rice overnight, dry it completely on absorbent paper, then grind it coarse in your spice grinder).

Mix 1 cup of coarse ground rice flour with ½ cup of freshly grated coconut with ½ tsp of cumin and ¼ tsp of salt water. Keep aside for 3 hours.

Now take a flat pan or an uruli, heat it well and fry it until it turns light brown. Make sure you keep on stirring so that it won’t get burned. It should only turn a light brown color. Be very careful. You have to continuously stir so that it doesn’t burn.Now sieve the fried flour through a corase strainer and grind the lumps and add it to the fried avalos podi.Serve with a little sugar or a banana.

We also make 'avalos unda' with this which will test the strength of your teeth. About that later…

I am tired! Not from cooking but from thinking up stuff for events. My brain really hurts! No more events…please…for couple of months. :-)