Sunday, July 22, 2012

Garden Sambhar




I bet you hadn't seen this one coming.  Yup almost all ingredients came from our garden (hence forth to be referred as the G). Except maybe the sambhar powder and drumsticks. Er.. maybe the dry red chilies for seasoning, potatoes and toor dal also didn't come from there... What are you, the food inspector? If I say it is from the G, then it is ! On the fun side, half the okra, all beans, onions and green chilies came from the G. Isn't that still good? We thought we could feel the freshness throughout. The onions were the best. Yes, they didn't reach their full potential because we were too lazy to separate the plant clusters. But the resulting size was perfect to replace the pearl onions I normally use for sambhar. Some friends donated squash and zuchini from their garden which also went into the sambhar. I have to say no other curry represents G as well as a sambhar. We did make bean and lettuce leaf thoran earlier which was pretty good. Them beans grow a plenty when paired with the corns. Native Americans knew what they were doing...



Before the veggies went into the curries we made some patterns with the onions, chilies etc and the donated squash. Didn't use the bell pepper in sambhar. Enjoy!


H and my girl did the arrangement below. Neat. Eh?



The beans have been harvested more than once.


Lettuce leaves show no sign of giving up and keeps on growing despite constant harvesting.


Tomatoes galore are coming up and will be ready soon.



Chilies and beans After harvest:


Corn is a longer than anticipated wait but is the most lush in the patch.


Until now I didn't know that corn has a male branch that shows up first.


The female branch shoots up later under it, to be pollinated from the top by the wind!!


And I thought the corn like flowers on the male branch was the actual corn because in the beginning it looked a lot like a corn. See what I mean?


Have no idea what the carrots are doing down there but we go on in the belief that they too are doing what they need to do:-) Okra is the one disappointment. Not thriving as we'd hoped but there are a few coming up to keep us happy.




That's it today for news from lan's garden. See you next time.