Guess?

I know I look ugly. They just digged me out. I am a climber. When you cook me I am loved by many.

Guess?

a little sour/sweet on the left, a little sour/sweet on the right. Who am I in the middle?

Mulberries

These are fruits you never get to buy outside, these are fruits you have to pluck right from the tree, hanging onto one of its branches, with cousins and nephews and nieces, your mouth exploding in violet and red. There are fruits like these that take you back to nature, to mothers. From the long winding verandha of the old house, my grandma would be watching us hanging like little bats from the tree. One of us would fall down and she would just hold us with her eyes, for she knnew we were safe. She would place huge sandbags around trees before each vacation, trees she knew we kids will cling onto like life, like life we just would want to climb and savor them and never think of a fall. But she knew better.

Guess?

Who is this pretty lady? No clues this time.

Small is better. Koorkka!

Have you ever felt that that something so tasty is just your imagination? That your taste buds are tricking you and such a thing can't exist? Well, that’s exactly what happens when you eat koorkka.

Malayalees love koorkka. There might be some who dislike Kerala’s favorite food kappa, but koorkka we all love from north to south, from east to west. What?! You mean to say, I said the same about kappa too? ;)

Well, last vacation I got three small sized tuber,planted it in three small cups and made them sprout. Summer I re-planted them into a big cow manure pit and yesterday it just rained koorkka. I got a sack full, yes a sack full of koorkka. Almost 5 pounds of koorkka. Can you believe it?

Koorkka is known as Chinese potato in U.S. This information comes from visiting Indian stores. I don’t have a clue what it is really called. I don’t even know whether this is available in any other place other than Kerala.

But if you haven’t tasted this tuber, then you haven’t tasted bliss.

Koorkka can be just stir fried like a potato or put in meat curries. I made beef curry with koorkka. You can use it like a potato.

Since they are small in size, it will take time for you to peel them. Back home, I have seen my mom cover them in a muslin cloth and hit on the ground to get their skin off. What I did was boiling them until tender and scraped the skin. Or if you have a lot of patience, you can just scrape them raw. I think boiling makes it a little, a pinch less tasty.

Koorkka unlike potato takes time to cook and won’t get mashed easily like potato. So cook them a little longer than potato.

Recipes will follow this whole week. Watch this space for koorkka glory!

Guess Me!

Brides blush with me. Who am I?

Guess?

Who am I? You dont eat my leaves. I am so shy I dont grow above the ground. I am so tasty I have a fan club in Kerala. I dont look like my big brother at all. Tell me tell me, who am I?

Guess?

Now, all you smartie pants out there, guess this.

(Warning: Any more threats, verbal abuse towards this poor me for putting pictures of my backyard will not be taken lightly. Will be forced to put more :-))

Spring...and a good camera...

Just for this day, I got hold of my cousins digital point and shoot and had a riot taking picures of our garden which is starting to bloom again this Spring. Was clicking frantically until the battery was dead. hehehe.

Have uploaded them on my Malayalam blog.

Here is the link.

Guess

An Indian woman and her kitchen cannot live without me. But I am too bitter to eat. What am I?

Honey

I remember…

…the times when I was a little kid, asking the taller ones in the family to get me the small cluster of flowers underneath each crimson cover of a banana blossom, from those tall banana plants…please..daddy..please..one more we will open?

…getting all excited and going from one banana plant to another in search of this honey in the early mornings, the big leaves of the plant wet in yesterday’s rain…

…sucking the honey from its cute little pouches…sucking until my eyes come out, my cheeks become hollow…sucking on my lips to get the last bit of that pure honey…

I remember…home…soaked in honey…

Can you see the small white pouch? That’s where the honey is stored in a banana plant’s flower.

Guess?

After a long time, I am blogging again. Was itching to blog, but I had to cook something, for this is a food blog. Couldn’t put pictures of food someone else cooked (hehehe).
Anyway will be cooking again and back to blogging and sharing recipes. Hurray! (What? You didn’t feel the same hurray?) hehehe… I am just silly!

Okay, before all that…ahem…let me see whether you can guess these two. (Or in other words, while I start to cook, just to keep you entertained)

Below are pictures of two spices we use regularly. Guess them. (Note: a pretty little baking fairy is not allowed to guess!) ;-)

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-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.

Guess the herb?

Update : Yes! I am so happy many of you guessed it right. That is too sweet.
It's Latin name is Coleus Amboinicus - Priya Bhaskaran gave me all the names!
Panikoorkka (പനിക്കൂര്‍ക്ക) in Malayalam - Sarah
Karpoora valli in Telugu - Vineela
Bilwa Pathrey in Kannada - Aparna and as she says it is Totally medicinal!
Cuban Oregano, Spanish Thyme - Diane
Broad Leaf Thyme - Devaragam

Very fragrant, smells like karpooram and the leaves are thick like a sponge. If you ever get one, please plant it in your yard in semi-shade. Or you can plant it in a container and keep it inside in Winter.

***
To me, maybe due to my limited English vocabulary, herbs always meant small plants which one uses for preparing quick home remedies. Herbs were something which you don’t ‘buy’ but search in your yard or your neighbor’s yard and find them, wash the dirt and use.

I come to U.S.A and everything is a herb here. I mean I never put ‘herbs’ in my curry. I didn’t understand that. Anyway by now, you would have understood I am not that intelligent :)
Also, when I read Fresh Herbs on shop isles, I wondered, Fresh Herbs? Isn’t that an Oxymoron? To me, herbs were always fresh, otherwise why use them?

I would go and search for these Fresh herbs, in small plastic packets, washed and ready to use and neatly labeled. I look at the price and I faint, $2 for 3 tiny stems? Herbs are costlier than milk? I don’t know why, but in my house we have this habit of always comparing other food stuff price with the price of milk. Anyway I never found a real ‘herb’ on those isles which will soothe the dizzy feeling I get when I see the price of it.

This entry is for Kalyn’s Weekend Herb Blogging. But before that, I want my dear friends to guess what this herb is. Clue: This is a REAL herb ;-), found so commonly in our yards back home.

flowers of the herb
leaves of the herb

For kids, the leaves are boiled with water and the water is used to bathe them when they are having fever or cold.

tulsi leaves and flower

The leaves of this herb and tulsi (Indian basil?) is boiled together to a decoction and served with honey to little kids when they are having fever and cold.

Guess who ?

Sreyashi Dey
Photo Courtesy: Srishti Dances

Who is this little pretty thing below imitating the famous Odissi dance pose?
This is very easy guess! But wanted to show you the cute little dance pose.

Guess the fruit?

Bursting through the roof in anti-oxidant content,I read in Newsweek, the juice of this is the current fad among health nuts. I am not sure whether it will really fruit this year, but it is producing lots of flowers.

Guess the fruit? (Wax Jambu)

This fruit evokes strong memories for me. For summer vacation we would go to my dad’s ancestral home and the first thing I do is climb on this tree, fold my skirt like a bag, get as many pink ones as I can collect in my little bag, tuck as many story books (balarama, poombaataa) into my armpit and run to the nearest stream with my cousins…munch on them and read…until the supply is over.

I know this is an easy one. But it has so many different names every 2 k.m. Want to get all the names as possible.

It has just started to fruit in my garden, Waiting impatiently for it to mature! I don’t know whether it is those memories or the taste that makes me go and stare at it everyday.

Guess the vegetable? (Drumstick)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

All these flowers are from my garden trumpeting the arrival of Spring.

One of them will turn into a vegetable we all love to eat and love to put in lot of our favourite curries. It has a hard outer skin and soft flesh inside.

Guess which vegetable? It is a vegetable,not a seed.(My digital camera is a sorry version since I got it free from Bellsouth for ordering their DSL, so pardon my pics, but I hope the pics are clear enough for you to guess)

Which fruit?

Yes it is Guava or lovingly called as Perakka
From our garden...It is guava indeed.