Farewell, summer garden!

Every spring for the last 10 years, we have planted a vegetable garden. Some years are more successful than others, and different plants yield different results each year. The end of the summer, when the garden stops producing, is always a reflective time for me: it heralds the shorter days, the coming of cold nights, and I brace myself to make it through the winter until the weather is warm again next spring to start the garden.

This year, I grew bitter melon (Paavakkai/ karela/ bitter gourd) for the first time. My grandmother used to grow them along the back chicken wire fence at our home in Malaysia and it was effortless to get them to yield fruit. Here in North Carolina, the results were mixed - beautiful healthy plants, lots of yellow flowers, but the fruits were late to form. When they did form, they were smaller than expected, but still have that lovely bitter flavor. Yes, it is an acquired taste!

Garden winners this year: Spring lettuce, Bitter melon, cucumbers, cayenne peppers, okra, bush beans, and basil.

Garden losers: zucchini, bell peppers, yellow squash, and for the first time ever, our tomatoes were losers, because of the $#@*! tobacco hornworm.

I'm enjoying the last weeks of summer, when our garden puts forth its supreme, final effort to yield farewell gifts to us from Mother Earth.

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Aloo-baingan-bhindi masala

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I am blessed with such an abundance of okra from the garden! My grandmother always told us okra will make you good at math - sadly, that reasoning has not worked with my two children, who refuse to eat it. Even though the way I prepare it, it's not slimy. Hubby will politely eat it but only if he has to. No matter, more for me to eat! Some day they may realize the wondrous vegetable that is okra. Here's a delicious dry curry that I made with some local eggplant and tender potatoes, some of my forty two tomatoes, and fresh okra from our garden. I ate it with rice, plain yogurt, and a simple salad of cucumbers, chickpeas, banana peppers with a squeeze of lime.

2 small potatoes, peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 slender Asian eggplant, sliced lengthwise then into 1" thick strips cross-wise
about a dozen okra, washed, gently patted dry, then sliced cross-wise
1 large tomato, seeded and chopped
1 teasp each ground cumin and coriander
1/2 teasp turmeric powder
1/2 teasp cayenne powder or more if you can handle more heat
vegetable oil for sauteeing - about 2 tablespoons
salt to taste
1 sprig curry leaves (you can substitute fresh thai basil or cilantro if you can't find curry leaves - it won't have the same flavour but will still be delicious)

• Heat the vegetable oil in a large nonstick saucepan, and fry the garlic and curry leaves till fragrant. (if using basil or cilantro, don't add it now, add it at the end)


• Add the potatoes and eggplant along with the cumin, coriander, tumeric, and cayenne, lowe heat to medium and stir-fry for about 5 minutes until they begin to soften.


• Add the tomatoes and about 1/4 cup water, and let the potatoes and eggplant cook until softened. Stir occassionally. It's okay if it sticks a bit to the bottom of the pan. This may take 10 - 15 minutes.


• When the tomatoes and water have been absorbed into the eggplant and potatoes, add the sliced okra.


• Gently stir-fry until the okra is just tender. It doesn't need to be over-cooked; that's when it gets slimy.


• add salt to taste and serve!

My Paati's (grandma's) okra

With our hundred-degree summer days my ladies finger (okra) plants are so happy in the garden. If you live in the Southeastern US, they grow almost like weeds - all they need is sun and water. I am picking a few every day and squirrelling them away in the fridge until I have enough to make sauteed okra, Indian-style.

If you want the full recipe, my dear old friend Yvonne over at My Halal Kitchen wrote up a touching tribute to the recipe that has been handed down over the generations in my family. When I was a student in Ohio (no Indian grocery store in Athens, horrors!), I adapted the recipe to use ingredients I could find while preserving the authenticity of taste. Tender, fresh okra works best. For minimum sliminess, make sure the okra isn't bruised and brown looking, and make sure to pat dry before sauteeing.

You can read Yvonne's very sweet post with my grandma's recipe, here http://www.myhalalkitchen.com/2010/09/30/okra-south-indian-style/