Chal re bhoplya tunuk, tunuk (Go pumpkin go)

In part 2 of Go Pumpkin Go Chatura had safely crossed the forest and her daughter was about to reveal to her the plan she had come up with while picking vegetables in the garden.

“Well, I saw this pumpkin growing in the corner of the yard and I thought, what if we let it grow as big as it can get. We will have to nourish it and take care of it for a few months. If we can let it grow big enough to be able to hide you inside it…” Samajh quickly finished. She looked at her husband and mother, expecting them to laugh at her idea.

To her surprise, her mother nodded her head and smiled at Samajh. “I think it just might work. We will have to figure out the finer details in the days ahead but I see no reason why we shouldn’t be able to pull it off.”

As the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, Chatura and Samajh planned and plotted of ways to get through the jungle safely. Meanwhile, Chatura enthralled her grandkids with stories of her adventures, some true, some embellished and some imaginary. The kids couldn’t get enough of their nanima.

Photo: Soma of eCurry

The mother daughter took care of the house and kept a watch over the pumpkin. They tended to it every day, nourishing it with water and fertilizing it with compost.  In a few months, their hard work harvested the biggest pumpkin the town had ever seen. It was almost three feet tall and about two feet in diameter. Chatura was a small woman and it was easy for her to fit inside the giant pumpkin. The problem was to transport the pumpkin through the forest.

Since nobody in the town was foolish or brave enough to do it Karma came up with a plan clever enough to match his wife’s. I should mention that Karma was a carpenter by profession but in his spare time he liked to invent little contraptions for the amusement of his children. The neighborhood kids were always hanging around the workshop in the hopes of catching him in his spare time. That was when he would whittle a piece of wood in the shape of a monkey, add some springs and wheels to it and viola, the little monkey would start cartwheeling on the ground.

A few days before the pumpkin was to be harvested, Karma set on building a little round cart that would fit snuggly beneath the giant gourd. He added four wheels underneath and added a few levers for Chatura to steer. The next day, the neighbors helped Samajh and Chatura hollow out the pumpkin and carve two eyes and a nose for the old woman to see and breathe. They cut a hole at the bottom, big enough for Chatura to get in.

Chatura hugged her grandkids and her daughter, said farewell to her son-in-law and sat down on the cart he had built for her. The neighbors handed her all sorts of eatables for the journey ahead. Then they lowered the pumpkin over her, taking care to align the slits over her eyes and nose. Samajh arranged some leaves and pumpkin vines around the cart to camouflage it. Then they all gently pushed the cart to the edge of the forest, whispered their goodbyes, said a silent prayer and watched as Chatura bravely steered her pumpkin cart on the rough forest path. Now it was up to Chatura to survive the one and a half day journey.

Inside the stuffy pumpkin Chatura steered the cart all the while keeping an eye out for Sher Khan. Around mid-day she thought she heard a roar but it seemed to fade away in the distance. Around two in the afternoon she decided to take a break and eat some lunch. Steering the cart was hard on her old bones and she was hungry. She deftly steered the pumpkin behind some bushes and started eating her lunch.

Photo: Soma of eCurry

Suddenly, she heard rustling on the other side of the bushes.  She stopped eating and tried to stay as calm as possible. The rustling stopped and Chatura heard voices talking in earnest.

“We need to get rid of that lion,” said a raspy voice.

“But Sardar we have tried so many times. Sher Khan is cunning. He stays away from our part of the jungle,” a squeaky voice said timidly.

“Well, we will have to do something. No one comes through the jungle anymore for fear of him. We haven’t looted a single traveler in months. The last one who came through was the old woman and she didn’t have a dime on her,” Sardar said angrily.

Chatura could not believe her luck. These were the bandits who had waylaid her a few months ago. They were a rag tag bunch of village misfits and bullies who made their living robbing defenseless travelers. But they could be useful to her in escaping the predator. She decided to get their attention.

“Excuse me,” she said aloud from inside her pumpkin.

All things TJ

I resolved to try to write every day this year and talked about it in this post hoping if it is for the world to read I may actually stay with it. The next day after I blogged about my resolve, I promptly broke it. It had been a long day with a Sunday morning Bikram class followed by a trip to the children’s museum. The evening ended with our first visit to Trader Joe’s, the supposed mecca of foodies. I wasn’t as impressed as I had hoped to be. Maybe it was all the hype and my own expectations or maybe I was just tired after trailing the kid and his friend in the museum all day (the kid’s best friends was spending the day with us, giving his parents some time to themselves). The kids behaved well enough for a grocery store that did not have any toys for them to gawk at but it still got quite tiring by the time we were done exploring aisle 2. Think the two of them wanting to use the bathroom at the same time or wanting to play tag in the parking lot.

 

TJ’s did try to entice me by all the chocolate covered almonds, fruits and toffees but I am proud to say I successfully refrained from buying any of the temptations. I did buy two bags of candied ginger but I consider that more medicinal and less sweet-tooth-recreational. The husband on the other hand was like a kid in a candy store. While I supervised the kiddos, he explored the alternate food world of tofu sausages, tempeh, edamame and soy protein. We came home loaded with bags of goodies including one of my new favorites, lentil-potato curls, which taste suspiciously like ganthiya, those deep fried, fat twizzler like sticks, made with besan (chickpea flour).

Chocolate orange sticks = crack!

 

It was dinner time by the time we were home and while I fed the kid his favorite, dosa and dal, he made good on some of TJ’s purchases. He made a delicious gyro with pita bread, TJ’s tzatziki sauce, some zucchini cakes (from Costco) and the tofu sausage. It was delicious and I was too hungry to take a photo. By the time I cleaned up, I was ready to hit the bed and not worry about breaking my resolution to write. I had succeeded in not eating any sweets, even though a delicious oatmeal chocolate chip cookie was handed in my palms by a TJ associate. I took a bite and handed the rest to my kid who claimed they were better than the ones we had at home. Take that Chips Ahoy!

The important thing with resolutions though is to not give up on them. So here I am, a few days later, writing my third blog post of the month and catching up on my resolution. Today, I have a simple aloo mattar rassa for you. Aloo is Hindi for potatoes, mattar (not a typo for ‘matter’) is Hindi and Marathi for green peas and rassa is gravy, usually thin and made by roasting a paste of ginger, garlic, onions and tomatoes. In our house, usually beans or legumes and sometimes vegetables are cooked in this simple gravy with little variations of the spices used.

He never finds the taste of peas to his liking (as in comparable to the “ones we get in India”). This time, we decided to try TJ’s frozen peas. He isn’t home yet and hasn’t tasted the rassa, so the jury is still out on the taste of the peas. I will let you know if these passed the muster. For me, peas are good any which way; in pohe, in sabzi, in usal or simply sautéed with some cumin and ghee. I love my peas.

I used my itty-bitty 3 liter Prestige pressure cooker to roast the ginger-garlic-onion-tomato paste, added the chopped potatoes and the frozen peas and cooked it for one whistle. Alternatively, you could roast the masala in a heavy bottom pan, add the potatoes and peas, enough water and boil till the potatoes are cooked through and peas are tender. It will taste a little different from the cooker version but it will still be delicious.

Aloo mattar, amaranth, pumpkin sabzi and a whole wheat tortilla

Coarsely grind:

3/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup tomatoes
3-4 garlic cloves
1 inch piece of ginger
4-5 sprigs of cilantro (optional)

Heat 1Tbs of oil in a 3ltr pressure cooker and add the following in the order listed:

1/2 tsp of fenugreek seeds (methidana)
1 tsp of turmeric

Add the coarsely ground onion-tomato paste. Sauté for a few minutes and add:

1 tsp of red chili powder
1 tsp of garam masala powder
1/2 tsp of cumin-coriander powder

Roast the masala with all the spices till the oil separates and the raw smell of onions and ginger-garlic turns into a fragrant aroma.

While the paste is cooking, chop 1 large potato into even pieces. Soak in a bowl of water for five minutes to get some of the starch out. Drain and keep aside.

At this point, check the frying onion-tomato paste. If you find the oil separating from the frying masala, add 1/2 cup of water and some salt.

Now, add the chopped potatoes and 1 cup of frozen peas. If you are lucky enough to get fresh ones, add those but don’t tell me about it. Add enough water or stock to cover the potatoes and peas and put the pressure cooker lid on. Set on medium heat and turn the gas off after one whistle.

Wait for the cooker to cool down before opening the lid. Serve with rotis or rice.

This is my entry for the theme 'Garnet' for the 52-week project

Oh, and by the way, I cooked the aloo mattar rassa in my Indian pressure cooker and it didn’t blow up in my face. If you are wondering what I am talking about, check out this post.   

A TJs Update: We went back to TJs last weekend, this time without the kid(s). It was a much better experience shopping at leisure, exploring all the wonderful goodies on display. I asked for suggestions on what to get at TJs on fb and was rewarded with some gems I would have missed otherwise. Manisha suggested the dried chili mango which is really good and my next favorite after the candied ginger.

Candied ginger and chili mango

She and some other friends also suggested the triple ginger cookies which the kid took a liking to. He has been eating 5-6 of them at a time but since they are really thin, I let him eat them in lieu of his two cookies allowance of Pepperidge Farm double chocolate cookies. I think it is a fair trade. I couldn’t find the rasmalai a cousin highly recommended. But the lentil potato curls were bought again and so was a ton of soy based food (not that we are turning vegan or anything. I tasted some roasted pork at Central Market yesterday and it was delicious). I was tempted to buy the chocolate biscotti but refrained from grabbing it. Overall, we realized that though small, TJs still had a lot of options to choose from and the ingredients and the quality of goods was overall superior to most of the name brand goods. We go back again in two weeks.

Go pumpkin go

I know I promised in my last post I will be back with some stories from India (check the bottom of the post for one of them). There is another one I have been working on which looks very promising. It is about a queen and an architect and secret passageways. But the story will have to wait while I attend my hosting duties for Susan’s MLLA-51.

The last date for sending in the entrees was three days ago and as the host I should have posted at least one if not a couple of legume recipes. As things go, I posted none. I also missed the deadline for Anita’s Mad Tea Party. Actually, I almost made it to her tea party but the kid fell sick. A doctor’s visit and some tests later we found out he had strep throat. He had to stay home for the better part of the week and though it was nice not to wake up at 6.30 AM to take him to school, I prefer him in school on weekdays. Unlike his mother, he enjoys the routine and predictability of the weekdays when he is in school. Nothing makes him happier than knowing what is in store for him for the day.

I try to keep a similar routine at home for him but things tend to get a bit loosey-goosey once in a while. He doesn’t seem to mind and I feel it is good for him not to follow a strict regimen all the time. He is just in first grade after all.

First grade has been a big transition for him though after the fun and easy kindergarten class. Last year, he got a one page weekly homework. This time around, there are weekly reading logs, math exercises and spelling tests to keep him occupied for the week. Did I mention, he also has after school activities four days a week? I, as always, am on chauffer duty after three in the afternoon.

Between picking him up from school, driving him to his play dates and assorted activities, I make dinner, usually a quick vegetable stir fry. Yes, we are not big on elaborate meals. A sabzi, some roti and a salad suffice us on weekdays.

This quick pumpkin sabzi is a staple during fall. In India, this preparation is usually reserved for fasting days and the sabzi is eaten without any bread or rice. We prefer it with rotis or a bajra bhakri and another sabzi or some cooked dal on the side. Sometimes, a koshimbeer of tomato and onions substitutes for a salad.