Simple home grown goodness

Tomatoes, zucchini and basil -- all grown in my vegetable patch. Awesome freshness.

home-grown bitter gourd

The summer of 2016 gave us bitter gourds too.

bitter gourd/ kaipakka/pavakka fry

and pickle

Okra/lady's finger bonanza

The summer of 2016 was okra/lady's finger/vendakka time for us. The five or six plants that I grew from seeds bought from the Kitasawa company produced so much!
 This is what I did with them.

 Our basic mezhukkupuratti

Punjabi mode:

Kerala Kichadi:

A stirfry with home grown tomatoes:

Another Punjabi dish:

Pakodas:

Kerala Pachadi:

Kerala Theeyal:

Gumbo:

Clay pot Chicken and vegetables

Last summer gave me a whole bunch of tomatoes, as I said before, and also a  lot of one dangerous veggie -- the ghost pepper. Hot stuff. The chicken was so moist and tender and flavorful. I had onions and garlic thrown in there along with the pepper and  the potatoes, celery and carrots. All great.  Only thing is to remember to remove all the peppers lying in there looking like tomatoes.

Ready for the oven:

sun-dried tomatoes

The year before last, after we had moved to this place, I had planted one tomato plant. And it did not disappoint me. It gave us enough tomatoes and more to last us for a long while. Then this year, I planted another one, and then I see these little tomato plants all over! I didn't have the heart to pull them out. Actually I thought they wouldn't grow! Was I wrong! I had so much tomatoes that I started drying them. A youtube video helped me here.

tomatoes

more tomatoes

and some more.....

drying

dried

in garlic and spice infused oil

yum!