INDEPENDENCE DAY LUNCH AND AMARANTH DAL!

Enjoy the Fourth of July, BBQ and fireworks,have a great day today and be safe!
YUP! I am back and still "unpacking" physically and emotionally! I have posted this little later than usual so I can take the photo of my special lunch today but had typed the recipes yesterday. There is a Amaranth Dal with homegrown Amaranth greens I made as soon as I got home from vacation too!:)

Now the answers to those two pictures I posted last week. We were in Nashville as many of you guessed last week which is called "Athens of the South" with 16 Universities with more than 1/2 million population and also called a "Music city".I enjoyed Nashville since I love old country (don't like new country singers) music and singers like Glen Campbell,Jim Reeves,Tammy Wynette,young Elvis etc and loved visiting RCA Studio B!

Inji Pennu got both of them correctly(clever girl you, thanks Inji!!).They are in Tennessee.'Parthenon' in Nashville is a exact replica of the REAL Parthenon in Athens, Greece with a HUGE statue of Goddess Athena inside.It is really Gigantic!! The second photo is, of course, is the home of Elvis Presley 'Graceland' in Memphis,Tennessee.Thanks to all of you to indulge me in my own guessing game! I NEVER EVER can guess correctly when I try the guessing games in other blogs!:D

Independence day lunch, NC style pulled Chicken BBQ Sandwiches with fixings!:)
Lexington's Pulled Pork BBQ is famous here which goes on for a weekend every year and many people from other states come here to taste the famous BBQ.Of course,mine is simple homemade version of that with pulled Chicken! Vegetarians,I think you can add veges or pasta to the sauce, try it.
What is "pulled"? In Lexington,Pork is grilled or slow cooked overnight and instead of chopping or cutting,you pull the meat apart with 2 forks to small portions and then smothered with that special Lexington BBQ sauce.YUM!

How to make it:
Cook, grill, or bake 3-4 chicken breasts until white in the middle. Put it on a plate and and use two forks to pull the chicken apart until it appears to be stringy. Do not cut or slice it.

Barbecue Sauce: Heat about 3 tbsp of oil, add 1 tbsp minced garlic, 1/2 cup minced onion, and saute until transparent. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of tomato sauce, 1/4 cup of ketchup, and 1/2 cup of water and boil. Add 1/2 tbsp mustard powder, 1/2 tsp ginger pd,1 tbsp lemon juice,1/2 tbsp Liquid smoke, 3 tbsp apple cider, and 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, along with 1/4 cup brown sugar or Molasses. Simmer gently until thick. Add 1/2 tsp of chili pepper flakes, salt, and black peppers or to your taste.If the sauce is too thin, you can add a mixture of corn starch and water to make it thick. When sauce is thickish, add chicken, simmer for 5 minutes, adjust the seasoning, and serve on a burger buns with side dishes,crisps and a for dessert!

Mashed Potatoes:
Boil 3 large potatoes until soft in water, drain, peel and mash roughly OR you can use two cups of mashed potato flakes. Add 1/2 cup of full cream milk OR 4 tbsp of heavy cream, 1 tsp of garlic powder and 3 tbsp of freshly chopped chives, add salt and pepper to taste.

Spicy Corn:
Get 2-3 corn on the cobs, grill them in the oven and peel off all the corn OR use 1 15 ounce of corn. Add 2 tsp of fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper or cayenne peppers and fresh parsley or cilantro. For variation, you can add chopped red sweet bell peppers or green bell peppers too.

A mini Harvest!!Click on it to enlarge.



First thing I did when I got home is to literally run to check my garden.Boy! Was I surprised to see a mini harvest there although it didn't seem it rained much that whole week.I was so happy to take photos,water them quickly, cut all the fresh veggies.Last photo is Green and Purlpe Amaranth on the green plate.I had bought Amaranath seeds online last May and they were fabulously grown and made a dal with freshly cut Amaranth greens!(I get desperate craving to eat a simple Indian dal whenever I come back from vacation!;p)






Amaranth Greens Dal:


How to make dal:
1. Cook 1 cup of Tuar dal and about 4-6 cups of amaranth leaves/greens with 2-3 cups water until soft. Mash slightly.
2. Heat the dal in a pan and add salt and chili powder to taste. Add the ground masala and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Take off the heat.
3. For seasoning, heat a pan with 1/2 tbsp each oil and butter. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds, a pinch of hing/asafoetida, 2 garlic, minced, 1 red chilly, and 1/2 onion, finely chopped until onions are reddish.
4. Add this to the dal and mix it. Serve with rice and papad.
Roast and Grind these masala: 1 1/2 tbsp Coriander seeds,2 tsp Cumin seeds,1/2 tsp Fenugreek seeds,1/2 tsp Peppercorns,1 /2 tsp Mustard seeds,1" cinnamon,3 tbsp dry or fresh coconut to a smooth powder or paste.

Here are some photos,click to see the bigger images:
We stayed in a hotel next to Vanderbilt U(Most students from 16 U's are home for summer,thank God!) with numerous diverse restaurants like any college city.Some Turkish restaurants had signs like "NO I.D., NO HOOKAH!" outside!:D
We enjoyed the restaurants and my fav. was Woodlands,a south Indian veg. from B'lore,met a girl from Udupi too who manages Woodlands!

Woodland's Mysore Masla Dosa!! YUP!! Snuck in a photo too!:D

In the collage you can see; Elvis's living room which is beautiful,his famous Pink Cadillac,his grave with along his mom,dad and Grandmother's graves just outside his home,New Grand Ole Opry, RCA Studio B where legends of Country music stars recorded their music with a Piano where Elvis recorded his as well,huge statue of Goddess of Athena, Ganesha Temple in a beautiful place surrounded by mountains, a 'tallest in the south' Bell South building which locals affectionately call "Batman building"(looks like Batman's hood!) and Mr.Vanderbilt's statue infront of Vanderbilt U.


Gibson Guitar center:
My son loved the Gibson Guitar center tour which shows how their handmade expensive Guitars are made! He collected lot of Guitar picks for himself and enjoyed looking at all the Guitars of the country stars in the museums in Nashville.


There were 2 reasons for us to visit Memphis which is 3hrs drive from Nashville. One was National Civil Rights Museum at Lorraine Motel where Dr.Martin Luther King delivered his last speech and second was Graceland.Unfortunately,Museum was closed on Tuesday,so we just took photos.

Lorraine Motel/Museum, room #306 with his cars,a building opposite the room from where he was shot and a metal plaque with Dr.King's speech says " I may not get there with you but I want you to know that we as people will get to the promise land" April 3rd,1968.

Some photos to make you smile in downtown Nashville:
Our tour guide was saying that conservative people of Nashville are fighting to remove this Art with lot naked of male and female figurines from the Country Music city circle for 40 yrs and have failed so far!:D


Another interesting ironic street sign which shows opposite direction for these streets!
Gay st. was probably named after Mr.Gaylord who spent millions and built a brand new Grand Ole Opry House when the old one became unusable, Opry land Hotel and paid for a HUGE mall called Opry Mills.


Last but not least,a beautiful Ganesha/Shiva Temple surrounded by green mountains all around, a nature trail and not to forget the Laddu prasada!:D I really enjoyed visiting that temple.Priests there were from Bangalore,spoke Kannada,I chatted with them for a while too in Kannada.Lot of baby naming ceremonies were going on there!:))

That's about it.I successfully stayed from my laptop 99% of the time during the vacation!!Hurray for me! Now back to blog surfing!:D
Well...see you all next week,don't know what I am cooking,will see.Have a fun weekend!:))