Announcement : Guest Hosting Veggie/Fruit A Month with Okra as Star Ingredient

Dear Friends ,I am back with an announcement for another wonderful event.This time I am Guest Hosting the Veggie/Fruit A Month Event started by Priya Y Mitharwal.Priya is a wonderful blogger who shares with us authentic and tounge tickling recipes from Rajasthan ,her home town in India and also presents with us modern and international recipes from around the world.When she announced this Veggie/Fruit A Month Event,I was very much interested in hosting it and Priya has given me the opportunity to host it for the month of September and for this month I was to choose a vegetable, for which I chose Okra as the star ingredient of the month.Thank you Priya for letting me guest host.

Coming to the star ingredient of the event OKRA, it is a worldwide used vegetable dated back to 3500 years of existence. Let us know more about it----------------

Biological Name : Abelmoschus esculentus, Hibiscus esculentus

OtherNames:

Bendakaya(Telugu),Bhindi(S.Asia),Vendakkai(Tamil),Okra,Okro,Ochro,Okoro, Quimgombo (Cuba), Quingumbo, Ladies Fingers, Gombo, Kopi Arab, Kacang Bendi, Bendi (Malaysia), Bamia, Bamya or Bamieh (middle east), Gumbo (Southern USA), Quiabo, Quiabos (Portugal and Angola), okura (Japan), qiu kui (Taiwan).

Health Benefits : This vegetable has a number of health-benefits.To name a few------------

1) It aids in weight loss.

2) Okra contains necessary vitamins like A,C and B6 along with large amounts of calcium, zinc, riboflavin, folic acid, and iron are also present.

3) Okra absorbs lot of water which helps prevent constipation,bloating and gas.

4) Get great hair.

5) Lowers cholesterol and reduces the risk of cancer.

6) It helps prevent diabetes.

All the above health benefits have been gathered from this article http://naturalhealthezine.com/okra-health-benefits/ .

For more information on the benfits of okra, refer some of the links below :

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra

2) http://www.pyroenergen.com/articles07/okra-health-benefits.htm

3) http://www.nutrition-and-you.com/okra.html

Always eating 5 serving of veggies and fruits a day makes up for a healthy body and healthy brain.To take part in this event you need to fulfill the following:

Rules of the Event :

1) Make recipes with Okra as the main ingredient.Get creative.(Salads,Soups,Stews,Curries,Gravies etc)

2) You need to link your recipes to this Announcement page and Priya's Event Page.

3) Appreciate the usage of logo.It helps spread the word about the event(To get the logo, left click on the pic and save it).

4) You must make new recipes and post them in your blog.No archived entries please.

5) Recipe has to be strict vegetarian (eggs are allowed). This is simply to re-enforce the fact that we can eat veggies without any meat and also for all our vegetarian friends, who do not eat meat.(Taken from Priya's Event Page).

6) Please send in your entries before/by 30th Sep 2010.

You need to send the following details to kjsumadhura@gmail.com :

Your Name :

Blog Name :

Recipe Name  :

Recipe URL :

Recipe Photo :

Non-bloggers are welcome to participate in this event.You may send your name and detailed recipe  to kjsumadhura@gmail.com .

Dear Friends, without further delay start sending your delicious entries with OKRA.