If you miss the train I'm on...

... you will know that I am gone. You can hear the whistle blow a 100 miles.

I'm sure you're all wondering what these lines have to do with my food blog. Agreed that this is the blog of The Singing Chef and that music has to be a part of this journey. Read on till the end if you want to unravel this little mystery. This is a long post.

I have always talked about why blogs and cookbooks will co-exist. Each fixes a different problem, a different need. There is a certain joy in going through a cookbook, getting inspired by it, cooking something from it and enjoying it. There is a different joy in blog hopping, finding a recipe, cooking it, letting the blogger know (or even seeking inputs where necessary) and then telling the whole world what a nice recipe that blogger put up. Overall, it fosters a sense of camaraderie. This post is my way of saying thanks to my fellow bloggers for putting up some delicious recipes that have added much needed variety to our dinner table. Some of the recipes that I tried (and we loved) are:

Pumpkin Erissheri from the Jugalbandits.

Tomato Spinach Pulao from Nags' Edible Garden.

Indian Style Baked Tofu from Madhuram's Eggless Cooking.

Pasta the forgotten way from Arundati's Escapades.

Mushroom Stroganoff from Aarti's Life Goes On.

Baby Carrots and Thyme from Nandita's Saffron Trail.

Chukku Kaapi from Mishmash

I have told you all that I didn't intend for this blog to become what it has. All this is a bonus. I only hoped to create a repository of recipes that I can access easily. Today, there are so many people who write back and let me know they tried something from my blog. I feel thrilled. When my "forced-to-be-bachelors-for-a-week" friends write in and tell me they cooked a simple meal from my blog which spared them another night of Maggi, I feel honoured. Then there are some folks out there who would make it seem like I am a celebrity (one even said as much!) and have nominated this blog in the Best Baking Blog category in the FoodBuzz 2009 Food Blog Awards!

This post is as much one to thank each and everyone of you who has visited this blog, encouraged me to continue blogging (especially at those times when I felt like giving up). I want to acknowledge the friends who have come into my life through this very medium. I want you all to know that I am deeply grateful for your presence in my life today. To all of you, I say:

I'm on the top of the world lookin down on creation

And the only explanation I can find

Is the love that I've found ever since youve been around

Your love's put me at the top of the world

But why am I singing the song by Carpenters, when I started with that beautiful song by Peter, Paul and Mary?

If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone

You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles,

A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles,

You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.

Lord I'm one, lord I'm two, lord I'm three, lord I'm four,

Lord I'm 500 miles from my home.

500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles

Lord I'm five hundred miles from my home.

Because Lord I'm one, lord I'm two, lord I'm three, lord I'm four, Lord I'm 500 posts from my home. And to reach this wonderful milestone on the day that S and I celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary makes both the celebrations that much sweeter! Happy Anniversary Sachin. You've made the last three years so memorable and I look forward to all the memories we will create together.

Vegetable Stew

I have never learnt to make any Mallu (Keralite) food. Maybe it was because I had easy access to it whenever I wanted. The only things I think I attempted to make were the Kadala Curry and Egg Curry after inspiration from Sig. There's a lot of stuff that I make that is so similar to Keralite food. My everyday upkari becomes a thoran in Kerala. I could pass off my proper Iyengar avial as a Keralite dish. But to me these foods are not typical of the only state in southern India that I am not connected to directly. (Being someone from Karnataka and Tamilnadu, I'm married to someone from Andhra Pradesh!) These are foods that I have grown up eating and can hence only think of them as Konkani or Tamil, however similar they may be.

 

Stew is quite another story. I can't remember where I first had it. But I remember licking my lips as I placed in my mouth the last piece of appam soaked with the remnants of the stew in my bowl. And I remember that taste as so distinctly Keralite. I have made this quite often and I used to take it to my uncle after my aunt passed away. It was the last dish I took to him on my way to work. I made this yesterday for the first time since then.

1 cup Coconut Milk

1 tsp Oil

1 cup Mixed Vegetables (Potatoes, Carrots, Beans, Cauliflower and Peas), boiled

1/2 cup Onions, sliced

7-8 Curry Leaves

8-10 Pepper Corns

1 Cardamom Pod (optional)

1" stick Cinnamon

3 Cloves

2 Green Chillies, slit

Salt to taste

Heat the oil and add the curry leaves and onions. Add the cinnamon, cloves, peppercorns (and cardamom, if using) and the green chillies. Fry these for a few minutes. Add the boiled vegetables and the coconut milk along with a little water. Add the salt and mix well. Crush some of the potatoes to thicken the stew. Allow it to thicken and then take off the flame.

I love stew with appams, but figured that it tastes great with rice too. Off this goes to Jyothsna of Curry Bazaar for this month's RCI - Kerala.