My daughter in love who is the boss of the garden at home had gone off to her mother’s place to mother-sit her mother recovering from a minor ailment. Her assistant and companion Mangal who is more or less the second in command at home also was absent shifting residence and I had a brilliant idea of having pudina (mint) chutney for lunch. The other help Shweta was duly deputed to purchase a bunch of mint leaves from the market and fortunately, the bunch remained unground due to a series of unplanned for developments.
Today, both the ladies are back on duty and when I requested that the chutney be made, I had the mortification of being informed of my ignorance of the mint leaves growing in our own garden.
This is the patch in which both betel leaves and mint leaves are grown. I had known about the former in the garden as I have a few every day after lunch. I was blissfully ignorant of the latter also being grown in the patch.
The DIL got the garden mint leaves to show me when I was amazed at the size of the leaves. I promptly got the market bought leaves out from the fridge and you can see the difference. The home grown ones are on the left.
Mint chutney to my liking cannot be made without a generous addition of green chillies and lo and behold I was informed that they too are grown in our garden.
Rummuser is mighty pleased that he can now have his favourite chutney whenever he wants by just accessing the major ingredients from his own garden!