Recipe: Pazhutha Manga Curry

Have you yet had a taste of the delectable , luscious , finger-licking good mangoes this season?

Once you have had these mangoes to your heart-content, here is a "Curry" made of ripe mangoes that tops my list of favorites (My mouth literally waters as I write this :-D)This recipe is courtesy dearest Bhavs who has been delighting us this season of A2Z with her amazing stories..

Ingredients    
Ripe mangoes (small sized variety) - 8
Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder  - 1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Grated coconut - 1/2 coconut
Cumin  - 1 tsp
Thick sour curd (beaten) – 1 1/2 cups
Fenugreek powder - 1 tsp
Coconut oil - 1 tbsp
Mustard - 1 tsp
Dry red chillies (cut to 2) - 2
Curry leaves -10-12

Preparation

Cook the ripe mangoes, chilli powder, turmeric powder and salt in one cup of water. Grind the coconut and cumin to afine paste adding a little bit of water and add to the mangoes when they begin to cook.
When the coconut and mangoes have cooked evenly add the beaten curd, cook for a very short while (do not allow the curd to boil) and remove from flame. Allow to cool lightly and then sprinkle the fenugreek powder. Mix again.
Heat oil in a pan and let the mustard, dry red chillies and curry leaves splutter. Add this to the curry and mix well.Adding a bit of sugar/jaggery to make the curry sweet makes it all the more yummy.

Linking this to AtoZ challenge - R is for Recipe

Family HeirLoom

In this post written a good three years back, I grieved about not having a hand written letter from my father... Here is an excerpt from the post...

Today when my dad is no more, all the memories I have are in my heart and may be a few pics that will speak for themselves. Isn’t it sad that my child will never have a chance of knowing him better especially considering what a beautiful writer my dad was........

But what I do have is this souvenir (this plank was stenciled and laminated by him) in which he had engraved the principle that truly governed his life and was a permanent resident at his office table!  Today it endows my home, at a place where I set my eyes as soon as I wake up in the morning..... My Kitchen window. A good piece of wisdom  to take in as I brew my cup of morning tea rt :)

This souvenir in indeed an inspiration for me... On worst of my days, I take a deep breath and read this aloud - The day suddenly seems more bearable.....

 Linking this to  Day 5 Of WT Fest of words - "An Inspiring Story" .


 This post is also my entry for the ‘My Most Memorable Memento’ contest conducted by My Yatra Diary travel blog and Indian Coupons.". I tag Pixie, Aditi, Ishi to share their most precious souvenir and its story...

My Earliest Memory

My little girl – she looked most beautiful and sprightly even as she thew another school-morning tantrum while her mother struggled to tame her wild hair into neat piggytails......

But a little later as she skipped away happily, I knew my “Blue-Roses” have done their trick. So what if it took a bit of scouting these “ladies stores” before I zeroed down on these Rose shaped hair-bands that were the exact shade of her uniform. Of course, the real trick was in convincing my imp that the flowers indeed looked real and that roses can be blue ;)

So the DramaQueen of Richa tagged me to share my earliest memory... here u go gal :). The post is narrated from my daddy's perspective.... A daddy's gal all the way I am :-D. Indeed strange are the things our mind retains rt....

I am tagging another of my favorite DQs- Ishithaa! Am sure her story will be loaded with loads of drama... what else :-D

Linking this 100 word post also to the Write Tribe Wednesday prompt of "She looked most beautiful"

GuestPost for DQ ;)

 DQ    has asked me to do a guest post for her space, I rummaged a bit for ideas. Nothing popped up except a book review - But "Ishithaa" is a space that I have come to identify with stories and a book review just didn't appeal to me.  It was only later in the day, in midst of usual "whats for dinner" whatsapp conversation that this idea of doing a "recipe" post stuck me - it allured to the foodie in me while the story behind it seemed apt for Ishithaa.  Read the story and recipe behind this pic here........

Go on ask Bhavya what DQ stands for ;)

Summer Delight....

... For me should be these succulent, golden beauties. 

Drool Worthy aren't they!

I wonder thou if a large part  of this liking is due to the nostalgia I associate jackfruit with. You see, during school days, The only time I would get to feast on these lovelies were during the annual summer visits to our ancestral home in Kerala where the backyard was peppered with jackfruit trees. Half the fun then was the definite banter that would ensue among cousins to see who would get the larger share.  I hv a cousin bro, who would mark his share by licking on each(so that nobody else would touch it) n then leisurely eat his voluminous loot... Ho the cries of outrage that would follow tht! Those memories still bring a smile.

So famed is my love for jackfruit that for one of the Bdays I was gifted one large one - N mind u it wa slugged a good 25 kms on a bike. N I hv a family who will wake up at unearthly hours jus so that they can cut, deseed n pack it in neat boxes ready for me to carry it back to hyd n now Kerala :)

Linking this to A2Z challenge - S is for Summer delights!

Poori Tales!

One of the biggest attractions of a Sunday is a king-sized breakfast\Lunch! In my childhood, Poori - crispy-paapad pooris(minus any sabji) was the definite favourite!

So time passes, I get married and then one of the v first experiments was of course the pooris. But by then, me realized that the sign of a good poori is for it be fluffy and soft(A far cry from my crispy-paapad ones :-D). So with all gusto, I dish them out -Now only if I were re-living my childhood fantasy then these pooris would hav truly been 'Picture Perfect'(So hard n Crusty were they)! Post a couple of other such disasters, poori was shelved off into the back-burner!

Fast-forward to present - A newly-joined colleague would bring this as-soft-as-can-be poori in his lunch dabba n I would literally drool over them! A oft chance conversation gave me a tip that they use a 50-50 ratio of wheat Flour-Maida. That coupled with another tip from hubbs to not to roll out the pooris too thin(I told yea he has cooking in his genes) gave me the push to try my hands at them again.

N lo-n-behold, I plate my first eva soft-n-fluffy(at least in my definition.. nee they not yet as fluffy as it should be!) pooris :-D

Me now off to do a Poori(licious) dance ... yummmm!!!

A tall Story...

Literally! Go, look up this link to know what am saying...

http://www.punemirror.in/article/62/2012062820120628153417190890402a3/A-tall-story.html

You guys rock!!!

I am going all-empathetic with  them.Cause thou am no-where near their 6'+,  Right from my kinder-garden days I was the tallest girl around ~~ so much so that when me was a little more than 10, I could give any girl-boy of my age a run for their money what with me towering above them at a good 5'7'' :-D. (Reason for quite a bit of heartburn for my mom... no prizes for guessing why)!

Thou today am proud to be the tallest lady in at least my circle, it was reason enuf to cause more than fair share of despondency especially during those not-sure-about-myself awkward teen-age!

A Family Heir-Loom

In this post written a good two years back, I grieved about not having a hand written letter from my father... Here are those lines from that post....

Today when my dad is no more, all the memories I have are in my heart and may be a few pics that will speak for themselves. Isn’t it sad that my child will never have a chance of knowing him better especially considering what a beautiful writer my dad was........

But what I do have is this souvenir (this plank was stenciled and laminated by him) in which he had engraved the principle that truly governed his life and was a permanent resident at his office table!  Today it deckos my home, at a place where I set my eyes as soon as I wake up in the morn..... My Kitchen window. A good piece of wisdom  to take in as I brew my cup of morn tea rt :)

Click on it to view betta..

Linked to Thursday Challenge.."WRITING & WRITING TOOLS” (Pens, Pencils, Notebooks, Journals, Calligraphy, Graffiti,…)

The Tharvaadu Memories!

A blink-n-u-miss it hop n stop visit to ma home in Gvr @ Kerala! But the one thing tht won go off ma memory for sometime is the soul-satisfying trip to ma tharavadu(ancestral home) there... A place I got to linger around after almost a deacde... A home tht is almost dilapidated but still holds  my  happiest-n-most-precious childhood memories! Ha the joy of relieving them with ma hubbs, sis n little niece.........

The Memories  of stepping into the dark-n-dingy rooms that still holds the aromas of fav foods, Of long corridors where we cousins would huddle around my grandma as a Jackfruit was cut open (N the fight tht followed to get the bigger share), Of the ammi-kall(Grinding Stone) where the yummiest of the masalas were hand Pounded, Of the afternoons spent in picking the Mailanji( mehendi leaves) from your own backyard and making a paste n the best part of it all ~~ having ur cousin come up with magical designs that adorn ur hands, Of the Thulasi-Thara where the lamp was lit every eve as the holder chants 'Deepam Deepam', of the eve prayers tht were recited at break-neck speed to catch the next game of whatever, of the monsoon rains(rain in kerala hv a charm of their own), Of the  sooty kitchen where the food was prep over the firewood-coconut husks, of the afternoons spent in splitting open the cotton husks which made the fluffiest of pillows n beds........ Of knowing that you are loved ..... Haaa How I miss those days!



My Tharavade ~~  A place that holds  my  happiest-n-most-precious childhood memories