Green Mango Chammanthi - GBP

Wondering what a chammanthi is? Read this and RP's.

This time for GBP Summer 2007 Entry( my second entry), I don’t have anything to write for this post. Let the pictures speak.







3 Green Chilies, 2 Shallots, Salt, 1 cup Sour Green Mango slices peeled – Crush them first, then add 1 cup of coconut and crush them again. I use a wet grinder for making Chammanthi.

Note: If you are buying store bought mangoes in U.S, it might not be that sour, so add 1 tsp of vinegar to the mango slices to get the right sourness.

Vaazhakkoombu Thoran or Banana Flower Fry

There are a lot of blog posts by fellow bloggers for this banana flower side dish. But is there one with a banana flower plucked from your own banana plant? :-)

Well, this is my first entry of the GBP Summer 2007, hosted by dear Deepz at LetzCook.

A banana flower side dish from my garden. Vaazhakkoombu thoran. Vaazhakkoombu is Malayalam for banana flower.

Remember this Odissi dancer? It has grown and become a big banana plant. I had some honey from the same.

When the bananas start to mature, you can break off the flower from the banana bunch(?).

Banana flowers are without a doubt extremely nutritious with all that fiber content. It is a very tasty dish when prepared properly. The main thing one need to take care is the outer violet or res skin. Do not include that. It will taste bitter. Peel the skin until you reach the crème colored inside.

Cut of the stalk or the end-portion, dice them very small. If you have only one banana flower the amount will be very less when you cook it. So, I add whole moong beans.

Banana Flower diced and immediately immersed in water with a little turmeric. This keeps the color intact or the diced pieces will turn black. – 2 cups
Cooked whole mong beans (Cook this in a pressure cooker) – 1 cup
Shallots – ½ cup
Green chilies slit – 4
Garlic with skin crushed – 2 pod

Heat 3 tsp oil, add ½ tsp mustard seeds. When they splutter, add one whole red chili, add 1 sprig of curry leaves, and add the garlic. When garlic turns slight brown, add shallots and sauté them until translucent.

Add banana flower, add ½ tsp turmeric powder, enough salt, mix and cook covered in low flame for 5 minutes. Add moong beans and ½ cup coconut and cook covered for another ten minutes.

Cook in high heat for tow or three minutes uncovered to dry the dish.

Serve with roti or rice.

Okay, how are your plants doing? Are they all getting ready to enter GBP 2007?

Sour Ginger / PuliInji

I had lot of plans for Winter GBP including carrots, cabbage etc. But since I got sick, everything flopped. But hope there are some entries for those veggies this coming GBP round-up.

I only have one entry for this Winter round-up. Mandira of Ahar is hosting this year's Winter GBP. Deadline is on April 10 2007.

Last year we had a wonderful GBP round-up with 41 entries. It was fantastic! (I lost my old post with around 40 plus comments on my old blog when Blogger beta died on me. Could recover only the post but not those valuable comments) :(

Inji is Malayalam for Ginger. If you know how to type Ginger, you will be bombarded with lot of information.

An old article from Indian Express caught my attention,

Excerpt:Cochin ginger , still considered the finest of ginger varieties by exporters .

Cochin ginger is second only to the legendary Jamaican ginger for its suitability for drying. While most of the ginger available in India now is suited only to be used as vegetable, low fiber content has made the Cochin ginger an all-time favorite with exporters.

Even though Ginger is from China, Ginger cultivated in Kerala has an exclusive flavor, due to the uniqueness in soil. It is smaller in size, has less fiber and has less water content than the commonly found variety. Potency of Kerala ginger is double fold than the other varieties.I had planted some ginger in a pot six months ago. The leaves die when ginger is mature.

As usual, there are many methods to make Sour Ginger or Puli Inji. I have heard Kerala Brahmins don’t add coriander seeds to this dish. My version has coriander seeds. This method of preparation is from Trichur or towards Northern Kerala. If you move towards the South, they add coconut pieces to this dish and preparation is slightly different. However this is the best way of preparation for longer shelf life.

Ginger scraped and cleaned cut into 2 inch pieces crushed into thin fiber like pieces. Crushed is the word here, Do not use a food processor and make a paste please. – 1 cup.

Whole coriander seeds – 3 tsp, Fenugreek seeds – ¼ tsp, Chili powder or red dry whole chilies – 1 tsp, Mustard Seeds – ¼ tsp. Roast everything in 1 tsp gingelly oil for one minute. If chili powder is used, add it towards the end and take off from fire immediately.
Grind to a watery paste with tamarind water (3 inch tamarind piece soaked in 1 cup of warm water and strained).

Shallow fry ginger in coconut oil until light brown. Strain the oil. In a non-reactive cooking pot, add fried ginger and the tamarind paste, salt and 2 cups of water and let it boil in high flame. Do not close with lid. Remove from fire when the dish thickens and add 2 tsp of jaggery to balance the flavors.

Heat 1 tsp of coconut oil (can use the strained oil from frying ginger), splutter 1 tsp mustard seeds, saute 1 sprig of curry leaves, ¼ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the dish. Serve with rice.Sour Ginger prepared this way stores well for one month in your refrigerator and a whole week outside. This is served like a pickle or condiment. It is said, this is equivalent to 101 curries. The taste is so unique and delicious; if you ever taste it once; a slight memory of this dish creates floods in your mouth. I can confidently challenge anyone to come up with a dish in ginger better than this.

If you have never tasted this simple yet World’s best recipe on ginger, do try.

When the blogs turned green!

This was orginally posted on October 1, 2006. I lost this post on my old blog. So posting this again from Google cache.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

There were days when food bloggers innocuously cooked recipes handed down by moms and recipe books. They did not bother about where the ingredients came from.

But one bright and sunny day, a little future blogger asked his mama blogger.

“Ma, from where do you get this snake shaped vegetable?”

His mama however was busy typing away on her blog and gave a quick reply.

“From the Indian store near the run down Movie Theatre dear, shoo...I got a comment on my blog, don’t disturb me for sometime”, said the mama blogger.

“But, grandpa told me, it came from a plant”, our future blogger was persistent.

“Oh! plant?”Mama blogger stopped typing, looked at the kiddo, took him outside, let him play with the dirt and the water can. They sowed seeds together and reaped. Bountiful!

Thus, every blog on earth had its own tiny harvest festival.

(All of the above is from my fertile imagination and no blogger was harmed during the process)

Before I start with the entries, don’t you want to see something special, my garden loving friends? Come along, walk with me through a two acre plot of a friendly family in tropical Florida and they have every plant you have heard of or even didn’t hear about.
Sounds like “weeeee” “oooooo” “that too” “really” “oh my god!” “I think im dizzy” were heard during the walk. I warn you too.
Coconut tree
Which came first?
Hmm, I heard about your Green Blog Project
Jackfruit
Sugarcane
Tapioca
Kovakka

During a recent physician visit, a blogger to her doctor,

“Doc, I have a problem.”

Doc: “Yes.”Blogger: “I can’t find my green thumb!”

Doc: “You are not the first person to approach me with this complaint.”

“Let me explain. Actually scientists have proven in rats and pigs for the past 1000 years, that there is nothing called a green thumb.”

“But doc, I am not a pig or a rat.”

“Oh, I mistook you. But wait, this year we had a breakthrough! We even proved humans don’t have a green thumb and we pinpointed the origin of the myth to a grandmother’s tail...sorry tale.”

“So you mean, I can plant anything and it will grow?”

“Absolutely! It won’t grow if you keep on looking at and sighing at your neighbor’s plant. You require seeds, some soil, some water and some tender loving care.”

“Do you have scientific proof?”

“Of course!” The doctor pulled out his laptop, typed in injimanga.blogspot.com.The day was October 1st 2006.

(Well, I was trying to be funny. If you didn’t laugh, please ask someone near to tickle you)

Now that I have bored you to death with my comedy, finally the entries!Green Blog Project - Summer 2006

Lovely Karthi showed me and fellow bloggers, that you can grow drumstick in cold climate and that too in a pot. I actually fell out of my seat when I saw that. She grew it from tiny seeds and she cooks with the leaves.
Drumstick Leaves

Then, she grew tomatoes and made tomato rice.


Tomato Curry

I thought, oh tomatoes are easy!
No wait, she said. I have okra too…

Okra

Now a secret, I do think indosungod doesn’t actually exist and is my imagination. Why? She grows everything I love! Here, my theory on green thumb myth falters a little. But…I cannot grow keerai here, due to heavy pest attack and I saw her entry. Grr..
Keerai

I was so jealous; I hoped her plants would turn bitter…and Viola! She had another entry and this was indeed bitter!
Bittergourd

Then, she created little Ben Johnson’s with much difficulty. She has a story about it.



What do you think one fellow blogger did for this project? She played a nice and sweet sister to her brother and sneaked some vegetables out of his garden. Well done, my girl! That’s what I want to hear. Hope all our brothers had beautiful vegetable gardens like that so we can sit and blog while they grow vegetables.Special thanks to Tanuja’s brother.(No, the kid you see on the photograph didn’t grow on any of those plants)
Gongura


One day this mama heard a scream, while she was daydreaming about her vegetables. “mama birds eating your flowers”. But, she managed to get us some mint.
Mint

Did you know, the fall of the green thumb myth was heard all around the World and of course in beautiful Japan too. All the way from Japan, from a tiny balcony garden I got an entry from Obachan.
Basil


I have a complaint. This blogger misleads you by the name ‘Trial and Error’, all the while cooking and baking beautiful stuff everyday.She grew potatoes from thin air. Her home grown potatoes are very chic, since they were growing in Ikea pots. What more could a plant ask for?
She promptly finished off the dish before taking a picture. But we can at least see how they looked.

She then grew basil.
Basil

Forgive me fellas, but I want to sneak in an entry with no dish, but as far as I can see dirt on a picture I want to put it. Lovely Sarah grew three beans, yes, exactly three. She who strongly believed in the theory of green thumb now is a convert.She and her cute kids vouch that it was indeed a myth!

This lovely doctor grew a plant which is hard to pronounce. Well, doctors always do that, don’t they? Write prescriptions which you can hardly pronounce.
(Look at those lovely babies peeping out of their blankets)

When I got her entry, I first thought this blogger is angry with someone. Look at all her chili plants…she is keen on growing all those peppers! Well, she sends me an entry with a mild pepper, so I know I am not her target.
Bell Pepper

No idea what this disease of mine is called, but when I see dirt on a vegetable, my knees become weak. Since I know it is freshly cultivated and the smell of it would be heavenly. Gini somehow knew about my weakness and she sends me pictures like that on purpose to torture me.
Radish

Then, she bathes a fish with her home grown herbs.
Fenugreek

By this time, we all know how to grow simple tomatoes. But what do you do with those extra tomatoes? Well, Kalyn has a solution and I loved that!
Tomato

Let me also mention, she has a great event “Weekend Herb Blogging”

We all know this popular blogger can cook and mesmerize us. I was very anxious of her popularity and wanted to trick her. “Okay, I know you can cook and all, but can you grow, eh?”, I challenged her. Hmm…what to say my dear friends? She can grow, she can paint, she can write, she can knit and I do suspect she is not one person.

(Hurray! We get to see her hands...sorry...plants)
Methi

As usual she gives you more, friends.
Basil

She was my inspiration to start this project. Thank you my dear Indira.
Cherry Tomato

Shaheen who started out recently writes so well and takes excellent pictures. Well she can grow too. She says she is cool as a cucumber with her first entry.
Cucumber

Okay, I get it that she is cool. But will she stop? No, she sends me another cool vegetable.
Malabar spinach

Okay baba? Nah! She says can grow tomatoes too!


Tomato
(Even after all this, she even tells me she has couple more entries too! Ah! The deadline is over. I got her! Phew! I am the only one cool here, okay!)


If you stay near this blogger, watch out. She will squeeze and take the pulp out of you. This lovely girl send me a healthy drink.
Tomato Juice

She can string some beans too, but did anyone see a Jack climbing that beanpole?

Beans

African Blue, Dark Opal, and Genovese – Do you think they are some kind of exquisite jewllery? Ha!They are different basils. Mel sends me an entry with three basils.
Three Basils

Gardener Christa had a hard time growing Squashes. But when they started to grow, they grew crooked!
Squash

Luv2cook had a single tomato plant in a 20 inch pot. A plant like that, I suspect might have some psychological problems growing up in nuclear families like those. So next time, I recommend her grow more plants.Tomato

I like Revathi. No, it is not because she said, I am Guardian of Tropical Plantation or because she remembers me when she water her plants. I am not that kind of person who falls for flattery. You think so? I like her ONLY because she grew something. ;)
Mint

Every time spicyana creates something and posts on her blog, I feel like dating the dish. They are so pretty. She whips up beautiful stuff and tugs at my heart strings. Good for her, that I am not in Portland. Only if she had helped God, when God was creating me.
Basil
Grape Tomatoes


I couldn’t believe I got this wonderful entry from Madhuli. I actually did a little dance.(No, we dont believe in videos in our house). This is a spectacular entry


Mandira lives in Buffalo, NY. It is a warm tropical haven where you can grow anything. You just need to sow your seed on the ground. Just kidding! It is as cold as Canada….brrr… I need a blanket even thinking of the snow there. But, did she think she can’t grow? No! In fact, she grew both the ingredients for this dish. I am so proud of her!
Tomato and Cayenne


My dear friend, RP in her workshop took the word 'Project' to her heart and she made cute little display cards with her plant pictures.
Herbs


No, she didn’t grow the waffle, but grew mint.
Mint


She, in this entry did a great marketing for the Green Blog Project. I am sure lots of people were inspired by her easy instructions on planting the easiest thing on earth which you can grow in just two weeks. If you can’t grow methi leaves, I can only say shame, shame puppy shame.


You know I like to sneak in plants without dishes too. So let me sneak in one more.

Sudha too grew something, but forgot to make a dish.

(This is only for this time, Next time any plants showing up for the event without your companion dish is a big No!) :)


Oh! I missed this when I posted the round-up. Guess the entry was not sent thru email or as a comment? But saw chocolate and remembered about this. It would have been a shame, if I had missed lovely Vineela’s creativity.She grew mint and then she dipped it in chocolate after making rice. Bliss!



Let us all drink to the Green Blog Project. Ah! We have a right entry for that.
(Dear Anita, Could you serve that without alcohol for me, please?) :)


Finally, these are my entries for the Green Blog Project.
May - Roma Tomatoes
June - Yellow Banana Pepper
July - Snakegourd
August - Hyacinth bean

This wouldn’t have happened if not for some friendly lovely cutie sweetie bloggers who advertised on their popular blogs about this project. I really thank them all from the bottom of my heart for spreading the word. Thank you! Thank you all for the great participation!

Request: Is someone interested in hosting the next GBP? No, it is not because I am lazy, but I believe in sharing :) . Please leave a comment if you are interested.