visit to the Alleppey beach in Kerala

This weekend we went to the Alleppy or Alappuzha beach. Alleppy is 46.8 km from Kottayam where I'm based these days.

The one hour bus ride was worth every second. The road to Alleppy was simply gorgeous. We had a glance of the backwaters and house boats on the Punnamada Lake. I couldn't take any pictures because the bus was very fast, which made the ride even more adventurous.

Finally around 5.15 pm we arrived at the beach. It was absolutely stunning. The white sand, camel rides and the sunset was very refreshing after a long day.

Here are some photographs we took that day.

A family enjoying a camel ride

We also saw this kid with think black kajal eyeliner under her eyes. 

Absolutely stunning sunset. It was a refreshing sight to all of us. 

                Lovi Chutney

Sweet sweet Lovi Chutney!!

 Like I told you making the chutney is extremely easy and the final product is addictive. Trust me on this. So here's how how you do it.

All you need is,

Loads and loads of Lovi fruits
500g of sugar
water
clove, cinnamon and salt

(I apologize in advance if this post sound vague. I'm not a cook but I observe my mom working her miracles ;) )



First you have to boil the water and pour into a separate bowl. Then add the washed lovi fruits into this bowl and leave them for ten minutes. This helps to soften the fruit.

After ten minutes drain the water. Once you do this the lovi will turn a little yellow.









The next step is to caramelize the sugar. You would know how to do this. When it is almost done add the lovi fruits into the boiling caramel and stir well. Then add the cinnamon, clove and salt to your preference.

Once this is done you will see a lovely pink foam, like what is pictured below. The key to a good chutney, mom said, is to keep stirring till  it's done. And this is the hard part because the chutney takes full 45 minutes.

Lovi and the caramel turning a lovely pink

Chutney working its way

Almost done, but still 15 more minutes to go

the final product! Yummy Lovi Chutney!!

And here is a pic of the bottle I brought to my friends.

 

The Lovely Little Lovi

A bowl full of juicy lovi fruits

One tree that goes unnoticed in my mom's garden is our lovi tree. This is because almost nobody crave for lovi at all. I was genuinely surprised when, recently, one of my colleagues said that she loved the fruit. Believe me she was the first to say so!

    Why do people hate it so much? That's because it is unbearably sour. So sour that your teeth goes numb and you can't taste anything else for hours after eating a couple of fruits. When the fruit ripe it turns from a very light pink to red and then a shade of purple. Purple ones are slightly better in taste but still sour.

      So, when I went home last weekend my mom came up with a brilliant idea. To make lovi chutney. This was the first time that we made it and it was a complete success. Everyone enjoyed it! Including mom herself. 

I'm not a good photographer but this a pic of the lovi tree :)

The best part of our little experiment was that I took loads of pictures and wrote down the recipe too. I'm not a good cook but making the chutney is very easy. 

Lovi is a tiny fruit that grows in a tree that is not very tall. 

An attempt by my sis and me to capture the fallen fruits