Kharbuja on the Vine

Ripe Kharbuja with Sweet Scent, Freshly Plucked from the Kharbuja Vines

Summer Sunday Treat ~ Kharbuja with Icecream

Kittaya Days of Summer

Table Rose (Moss Rose) in Bloom

June started with warm weather and thunderstorms here in Houston.

Yellow squash and zucchini plants are in their final stage, so had to remove them. They were such characters with those big, prolific leaves, flowers and fruit. With them gone, the veggie patch seemed little empty this evening.

Planted few more seeds of turai, chikkudu and karela.

On green leafy front, sowed green and red amaranth (thotakura) seeds and another patch of gongura seeds last week. They thrive in hot weather and the seedlings are coming up nicely.

Kept few cucumbers on the vine until they are very big and mature for seeds.

Weighed the tomato harvest today. Yield was 10 pounds. Another 5 pounds from the last two weeks for a total of 15 pounds from 12 plants. There are still at least another two pounds of tomatoes on the plants. Not bad.

Tomato plants are growing tall, but there are no new flowers/fruit. Would it be helpful to prune the tomato plants to encourage new growth and fruit? Appreciate response from experienced tomato growers.

Here are some vegetable harvest photos for this week:

Tomatoes (Brandywine, Celebrity, Cherokee Purple), 10 pounds and
12 cherry tomatoes

1 zucchini, 2 yellow squash, 5 cucumbers, 6 mirchi

3 bell peppers, 7 brinjals, 12 okra

3 ripe cucumbers for seeds

Home Garden Harvest for this Week:
28 tomatoes (Brandywine, Celebrity, Cherokee Purple)
16 okra (bendi)
8 brinjals (purple variety)
7 cucumbers (pickle variety)
4 yellow squash
2 zucchini
1 turai (beerakaaya)
Bunch of ripe, red chillies

Payala Kura (Purslane) from my Garden

Last March, I planted some seeds expecting edible amaranth plants. But then came in abundance, pleasant looking plants with plump leaves and tiny yellow flowers. The leaves in size and shape resembled methi but they are much thicker. I couldn’t identify them for sure, so I called my amma(mom) and described the plant in detail. Amma said, “Indira, you have payala kura. It’s an old-time leafy vegetable, tasty and good for skin and eye health. Remember, payala kura pappu (dal), kura(curry) and chutney I make. You used to like it.”

Last time I had payala kura was at Nandyala, at my mom’s home, almost 15 years ago. So finding it here is definitely a delightful surprise. There is some very good information about this native to India plant, and could be found on Google search. Just type payala kura (Telugu) or Purslane (English). I also realized I had these greens growing all along in between the flower bushes. Here it was, a tiny plant, promising a wealth of health, but treated like a no-value weed. I wonder why sometimes we tend to overlook the best that is readily available and right in front of us.

Following my mom’s suggestion, I made traditional, Telugu vaari payala kura pappu today. Thanks to the sweet-sour taste of payala leaves, the dal came out wonderful, and it tasted better than spinach dal, almost as good as gongura dal.

Payala Pappu (Purslane Dal)
(for 2 or 4, for 2 to 1 meal)

¾ cup, Toor dal
2 cups, tightly packed – Fresh Payala (purslane) leaves and tender stems
1 onion or shallot – coarsely chopped, about a half cup
6 to 8, green chilli, Indian or Thai variety, chopped,
1 tablespoon, tamarind
¼ teaspoon, turmeric

Take toor dal in a pressure-cooker. Rinse well. Add the payala leaves, onion, chilli, tamarind and turmeric. Add about 2 cups of water. Mix. Pressure cook the ingredients to soft. Once all the valve pressure is released, remove the lid. Add half teaspoon of salt. With a wood masher or whisk, gently mix and mash the dal to smooth. You have made the purslane dal. Now the only thing left is, the final touch, the hing (asafetida, inguva) tadka.

For hing tadka: Heat a tablespoon of peanut oil in a vessel. When oil is hot, add a sprig of fresh curry leave, a pinch each- cumin, mustard seeds and hing. Constantly mixing, toast the ingredients to fragrance. Add the dal to this hing tadka. Mix well.

Serve the purslane dal with rice or roti with some curry or papad on the side for a traditional Telugu meal.

Payala Pappu with Kerala Matta Rice ~ for Meal Today

Notes:
Payala Kura in Encyclopedia of Indian Medicine

May 22 and 23:

Vratham Food:
Sundal, sambar and subji, the three S’s with plenty of fresh vegetables and protein filled lentils was my food intake on the weekend.
Workout: Not much except the routine, weekend shopping walk.

May 24:

Vratham Food:
Morning: A cup of Ragi malt and one cucumber
Noon: Zucchini zunka (love this recipe) with roti, and a bowl of mango and pear fruits
Evening: Capsicum subzi with roti plus a small cup of yogurt rice with diced cucumbers
Workout: 30 minutes walk + 3 hours gardening work + 15 minutes meditation
Miss you. dear Kay!

May 25:

Vratham Food:
Morning: A cup of ragi malt and one cucumber
Noon: Capsicum subzi in Sesame sauce with one roti + a bowl of pear fruit
Evening: A bowl of Payala kura pappu (purslane dal) with Kerala matta rice + a glass of ginger buttermilk
Workout: 30 minutes walk + 15 minutes meditation

May 26 to 31:

Vratham Food:
Morning: Sundal and Ragi malt
Noon: Bowl of Subzi with fresh and green leafy vegetables with roti and a bowl of fruit
Evening: A bowl of Sambar Soopa with toor dal and plenty of fresh vegetables and a bowl of fruit
Workout: Walking, weights and meditation

Vratham Results:
Sundal, Subzi and Sambar, the three S’s of Bharath’s culinary staples were my Satyam, Sivam and Sundaram during Workout Vratham. I am glad I did the workout vratham. I feel light and I have much more energy than before.

Home Garden Harvest for May 4th Week

As the summer approaches, I see brinjals getting bigger and tomatoes slowly changing color from green to red shades. Tiny pequin peppers are also coming up a lot. They would make great tadka mirchi. My plan is to soak them in dahi(Indian yogurt) and sun-dry to prepare dahi mirchi.

Here is the vegetable count for this week.

7 yellow zucchini
1 green zucchini (I thought I planted only yellow)
9 cucumbers (pickle variety)
6 brinjals (purple variety)
15 okra (bendi)
8 cherry tomatoes and 1 big, ripe tomato (Cherokee Purple)
28 green chillies (bajji variety)
4 anaheim peppers
Bunch of chilli pequins (tiny tadka/talimpu mirchi)
Bunch of green beans

Do you know cucumber pickle recipes without vinegar? Any new ideas and recipes for the above vegetables? I would love to hear from you.

Fragrant Gardenias from My Garden

Lakshmi chinnamma, who lives in Hyderabad, India loves gardening as much as I do. She is an avid plant collector. I remember her growing sandalwood, parijaatham to name a few. She just started browsing my website and I know she would enjoy seeing beautiful gardenias from my garden. If I could only share their potent jasmine like fragrance as well…

Beautiful Gardenia ~ for Dear Lakshmi Chinnamma

Chinnaamma (Telugu) = Mother’s Younger Sister

May 15th:

Vratham Food:
Brunch: 3 Rose Matta rice dosas with cubed zucchini in cashew sauce + 1 sweet mango + 1 cup cardamom chai
Evening: 2 wholewheat vegetarian pizza slices (grimaldi) + 1 glass buttermilk (home)
Workout: Shopping walk

May 16th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: a cup of cardamom chai
Noon: Traditional Kerala-onam style meal at a friends home ( matta rice, avail, mango pulissery, sambar etc served on banana leaf).
Night: Wasn’t feeling hungry much. So, had a glass of plain soda water and a mango.
Workout: Talk and laugh, moved the mouth muscles a lot. It was a pleasant day.

May 17th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: a glass of cucumber lemonade (from Cilantro blog) + 15 rehydrated almonds
Noon: a bowl of cucumber kosambari + small bowl of carrot sambar + 1 mango
Evening: 6 Zucchini ponganaalu with honey + 1 glass buttermilk(homemade)
Workout: 15 minutes meditation + 30 minutes walk

May 18th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: A glass of cucumber lemonade + 15 rehydrated almonds
Noon: a bowl of zucchini zunka with sorghum roti + small bowl of fruits (pear and mango)
Evening: 1 cup palak tofu with a cup of kerala matta rice + 1 glass buttermilk(homemade)
Workout: 30 minutes elliptical + 30 minutes walk + 15 minutes meditation.

May 19th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: A glass of cucumber lemonade with just a bit of honey (it’s humid here) + 12 rehydrated almonds
Noon: a bowl of zucchini zunka with sorghum roti + small bowl of fruit (pears and mango)
Evening: 1 small bowl of capsicum in sesame sauce + a cup of kerala matta rice + a small bowl of chana dal chaaru
Workout: 1 hour aerobics + 30 minutes weights + 15 minutes meditation

May 20th and 21st:

Enough protein powered lentils and fresh vegetables filled sundal, sambar and subji with some Kerala matta rice sums up my food intake.
Low energy days, so no workout.

Vegetable Harvest for This Week from the Garden
5 cucumbers, 3 yellow zucchinis, 3 green bell peppers and 18 okra

Roadside Fruit Stand, Houston
Houston sprawl could make one hurl, but soothing the stomach and the sight are occasional roadside fruit stalls on inner farm roads. While coming back from a friend’s home, we saw this stall and had a sample of sweet mango from a charming boy. Came home with a box of golden yellow mangoes. I don’t know what it is, may be the boy’s charm rubbed on mangoes, they are heavenly delicious. The real miracle is they have that intoxicating ripe mango scent.

Red Radish Flower Bouquet
Radish plants are in vigorous bloom. I harvested few radish branches that are full of flowers and placed them in cold water filled flower vase. Radish flowers are tiny but very pretty in light pink shade with sweet scent.

Purple Brinjal Plants

Tomato Plants, almost 4 foot in height and with Plenty of Green Tomatoes

Mirchi Plants

Cucumber, Zucchini, Beans

Vegetable Harvest for this Week

It’s always a pleasurable surprise when vegetables start arriving in quantity – One minute I have single cucumber and four pea pods, next week a surplus. This is what I harvested yesterday. 7 Cucumbers, 4 Yellow Zucchinis, 1 Brinjal, 1 Green Bell Pepper, a bunch of green chillies, green beans and green peas. First major harvest of this season and what a joy!

May 8th and 9th:

Went out on the weekend to parties and had party food. (Naan, Pulao, Matar and Palak Paneer, Raita and Rasmalai) Not good vratham-wise, but I did do portion control.
At home, for breakfast and evening meal, had ragi malt, fruit salad and upma.
Workout: Shopping walk.

May 10th:

Vratham Food:
Morning:A glass of lemon(lime) water. (Squeeze half a lime into a glass of water. Mix and drink.)
1 cup mung sprouts lightly toasted and seasoned with salt and black pepper.
Noon: 1 bowl cucumber slices + 1 bowl mango slices with salt and chilli powder + Half glass plain soda water
Evening: A bowl of Kerala matta rice with a cup of turai curry + a cup of okra-toor dal sambar made without tamarind
6 glasses of water throughout the day.
Workout: 15 minutes meditation + 30 minutes brisk walk

May 11th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: 1 big cup, ragi malt sweetened with jaggery + 15 rehydrated almonds
Noon: 1 small bowl moong sprouts subji + 1 sweet mango
Evening: 4 zucchini pesarattus + 1 glass ginger buttermilk (from homemade yogurt)
Workout: 1 hour cycling(spinning) + 45 minutes weights class at the gym.
Good day.

May 12th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: 1 big glass of ragi malt, sweetened with jaggery + 15 rehydrated almonds
Noon: 1 bowl of guggullu(sundal) with alasanda + 1 ripe, sweet mango (yum!)
Evening: 1 cup cardamom chai
1 cup Kerala matta rice + 1 cup mango dal + 1 cup green beans-green peas poriyal (from yesterday’s harvest, green beans never tasted better)
Workout: 30 minutes walk + 15 minutes meditation

May 13th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: 1 glass of ragi malt, sweetened with jaggery + 15 rehydrated almonds
Noon: 1 bowl green beans-green peas poriyal with a cup of Kerala matta rice + 1 sweet mango
Evening: 2 bajra rotis + 1 bowl cluster beans-Crowder Peas curry + 1 glass plain soda water (so humid here)
Workout: 15 minutes meditation and 30 mins walk + 45 mins spinning class at the gym.

May 14th:

Vratham Food:
Morning: 1 glass of ragi malt sweetned with jaggery + 12 rehydrated almonds
Noon: 1 cup cluster beans (gawar)-crowder peas curry with one bajra roti and a glass of buttermilk
Evening: 3 matta rice+urad dal dosas with some zucchini curry + 1 sweet and tasty mango
Workout: Home cleaning and website cleaning (oy, what a mess!)