Factual tips while using home grown veggies and fruits

Thought of sharing some tips while you use home grown and organic vegetables:

If harvested at the right time, they will be so tender. These veggies will require only very limited time for cooking and avoid using pressure cooker.

We should always avoid cooking for long time, the genuine taste of the vegetables can be enjoyed only if they are not overcooked.

Never panic if you see as cut leaf or an insect bite on one or two leaves, it only comes with a re assurance that these have not been exposed to hazardous chemicals.

Greens like palak should never be over cooked. These are rich in oxalic acid and the dish will get sour if we cook for long time.

Farm fresh veggies will come to you with roots and  also without disturbing the leaves to get them fresh on the table. We will need to wash them well to get off any mud from the roots or any small sapling clinging on it.

It is a good ides to wrap the leaves with news paper before storing them in fridge. This will keep the leaves fresh till we use them. These will also stay fresh inside enclosed ss containers.

The stem of the amaranthus that we use will taste very nice in other veg curries. 

Some home grown vegetable will look thin or small. This only indicates that no excess fertilisers have been used. These will be more tastier than the heavily weighed ones.

Fruits

Pappaya and Chikoo are generally harvested  before they are ripe as these can attract bats if they are retained on the trees. 

To ripen papaya, we need to wrap them in paper or cloth and leave them in a container storing rice for one or two days. The color of the outer skin will let us know that the fruit is ripe. At this stage we can press with the finger and check if it has ripened.

For chikoo avoid washing before ripening, as the moisture will build fungus while they ripen. Mostly when they are organic becuase there wont be any chemicals applied on them. We should avoid checking by pressing with finger.  Chikoo is a tender fruit and it will leave a black mark when the fruit ripens. After covering the fruit with paper or cloth, we can leave them inside container stored with rice or in any other enclosed space if you want them faster or in open space if you are ok to wait for four to five days. While checking please smell and ripe fruit can be recognised by smell. Once you get the aroma of a ripe fruit you can double check by slightly pressing  the fruit. Keeping them along with a ripe banana will speed up the ripening.

Watermelons are normally harvested when they are ready to be consumed.

Musk  melons are harvested when they are getting ready to ripe and so only one or wo days only will be required before consumption. Never cut them without checking the aroma or by pressing the fruit. Once the fruit is cut, natural ripening will get tampered.

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Nirmala Dinesh

Avani