Mahanandi

Small Variety Ripe Bananas ~ for this week’s Indian Kitchen

Weekend Reading:
Blogger to Wordpress ~ The Move
Wordpress 2.3 and Movable Type 4 ~ The Comment Exchange
The Saga of a Lemon Rasam
Mavalli Tiffin Room ~ MTR

It’s been a year since we moved to Seattle. New place, new surroundings and a new lifestyle. At times we enjoyed immensely and some times we got disoriented. It’s like a roller coaster ride.

Here is to Seattle ~ sleepless nights, memorable moments and all other things in a single shot:

Chamakura Pappu (Arvi Daal):

The taro root I planted in May has now grown to a decorative type of plant with beautiful looking leaves. Growing taro at home turned out to be an easy process. I have planted small variety taro similar to what we see around Nandyala region, India (which is different from the elephant or giant type taro). I placed a healthy looking taro root in a container and loosely covered it with soil. Kept the container in patio where the sun shines and watered it daily. In just two months, around July, a young shoot appeared. Now the plant has six healthy looking leaves and thriving.

My taro growing fancy is mainly for taro leaves. The leaves are perfectly edible plus they are nutritious. We use only young leaves for cooking. With unique flavor and great taste, young taro leaves are easily likable. Back at home in Nandyala, my mother prepares two recipes with young taro leaves - a spinach style curry, where the blanched and finely chopped leaves are sautéed with onions and second is a flavorful dal where the taro leaves are steamed with toor dal. Dal has been invariably my favorite taro leaf preparation and is our meal today.

Taro Plant (Chama Dumpa Mokka, Arvi Plant) ~ for Green Blog Project

Recipe:

Toor dal - 1 cup
Young taro leaves - 4 (about the size of ping-pong paddle), finely chopped
1 small onion and 6 green chillies - coarsely chopped
Tamarind pod - about the size of a small finger, seeds removed
¼ teaspoon turmeric

Take them all in a pressure cooker. Add about two cups of water and cook until the dal reaches fall-apart stage. Once the valve pressure is released, remove the lid and add half teaspoon of salt to the cooked contents. Mix, and gently mash the dal to soft consistency with wood masher or immersion blender. Set aside.

Now do the tadka: In a small pot, heat a tablespoon of oil or ghee over a medium-hot burner. Add a teaspoon of minced garlic, a sprig of fresh curry leaves. Toast them to pale brown. Then add a pinch each - cumin, mustard seeds and asafoetida. Stir and wait for the mustard seeds to pop. This process is called tadka.

Add the mashed dal to the tadka contents and mix thoroughly. Serve the dal over rice or chapati with a teaspoon of ghee drizzled in for a scrumptious meal.

Taro Leaves Dal with Mirchi Bajji and Chickpea Guggullu ~ Meal Today

Recipe Source: Amma, Nandyala

This year we celebrated Ganesh Chaturthi in Goa. Tourists come to Goa in hordes to enjoy Christmas and New Year’s Day, but fortunately, Ganesh Chaturthi here has remained a quiet, joyous festival that graces the home and the temple rather than strut the streets. Having grown up on the very public, loud, and grandiose observances in Mumbai, the Goan experience came to me with all the freshness and fragrance of a monsoon breeze. Here there are no gigantic idols worth crores of rupees, no loudspeakers blaring crude film songs, no vargaNi (monetary donations) demands at your door by Ganeshotsav associations, and none of the other attendant evils of commercialized celebrations. While there are saarvajanik (public) Ganesh utsav celebrations in Goa, the scale and noise is nowhere near that of Mumbai. The spirit of Ganesh Chaturthi - a celebration of the birth of Ganesh through private worship, cooking and eating delicious saatvik meals, visiting your friends’ and neighbours’ and sharing festival snacks, participating in the aarti, community events such as cooking contests, rangoli and maaToLi competitions - is still alive in Goa.

Here are some vignettes from our Ganesh Chaturthi in Goa.

Shri Shrikrishna Dhumal, a murthikaar in the village of DhargaL, Goa.
These artists shape the murthi by hand and do not use molds or templates. Only eco-friendly materials, from the clay to the natural dyes, are used.

Shri Umanath Naik, another murthikaar in Nagueshi village, putting the final touches on his creations.

The day before Ganesh Chaturthi is marked by paying homage to Ganesh’s parents, Shankar and Parvati.

As part of the naivedya for the Shankar-Parvati puja, a special dish is made with five different seasonal greens. These bunches are prepared and sold in the markets by village women. It includes pumpkin leaves, drumstick leaves, red and green amaranth, and chavLi greens. The greens are cooked without salt and offered to Parvati to take care of her pregnancy cravings.

Our Ganesh, resplendent in his birthday finery.

Modak for the birthday boy. Less than perfect in looks, but full of shraddha (and taste).

MaaToLi is a Goan tradition where, fresh fruits, vegetables, berries, etc. are hung on a wooden frame over the murthi, symbolizing Ganesh’s status as a provider. This is crafted with a great deal of care and passion in the villages, and the all-Goa maaToLi competition has many enthusiastic participants. This picture was taken in the remote village of Bambar in a peasant’s cottage. He had 175 unique items in his assemblage, all of them either grown in the farms or foraged from the wild. We later read in the papers that he won the third prize.

On the day of visarjan (immersion) - a quiet moment after the aarti.

Our Ganesh at the Panjim jetty, just before immersion. This is the hardest part of the festival.

The next morning we headed out to Nirankarachi Rai (nirankar = without form, rai = grove). This is a sacred grove in a forest in the village of Bambar. The Ganapati murthi are dipped in the stream and then left in the forest to naturally mingle with the earth. A more fitting farewell for Ganapati Bappa, I simply cannot imagine!

Photo Credits: Rajan Parrikar

Mathy Kandasamy of Virundhu and Food Blog Desam is in the process of moving the websites to a new server, and for few hours Food Blog Desam won’t be available. FBD would be up as soon as the transfer is complete.

The new food bloggers who have sent emails to be included in Food Blog Desam have to wait until the new server is set up. Thank you for your co-operation.

*******
Busy days.

Bhakthi
Bhagavan Vinayaka at My Friend’s Home (Goa, India)

Bhukthi ( Neivedyam)
(Festival Meal at My Friend’s Home, Goa, India)
(Modak, Pakoda with Green Chillies and Capsicum, Unprocessed Goan Rice, with Varan (Plain Toor Daal simmered with Salt, Hing, and Cumin), Mooga-gaathi (Sprouted and Peeled Moong Cooked in a Thin Coconut Gravy), Pumpkin Sabji, Papad, Pickle, Salt and A Glass of Buttermilk)

Vinayaka Chavithi Subhakankshalu to Family and Friends!