"Thalis & Platters" all of Sep ~ Mega Marathon BM#116

This is an announcement for the next Mega Blogging Marathon that will happen during April 2020. It's going to be "Thalis & Platters". We had decided this theme almost ten months ahead, which means everybody's got about two years to plan for it. Just to make sure I give this opportunity to all, I thought I must announce it ahead.

Update- We postponed the Mega BM to September due to the current situation. September has the same weeks, the only change we had to make was to make Saturday as the holiday.

If you are landing here for the first time, just to update you, we are a group of Food Bloggers doing a Blogging Marathon every month for 4 weeks doing 3 days each month. However, during April and September, we do 26 days of nonstop blogging, with Sundays off, for this September 2020, Saturday will be off.

We have been doing the Mega Blogging Marathon since April 2013, with the below themes:

April 2013 was a weekly theme
September 2013 was ABC Cooking
April 2014 was Indian Food Odyssey
September 2014 was Around the world in 30 days
April 2015 was Fire up our Ovens
September 2015 was a Buffet On Table
April 2016 was a Journey through the Cuisines
September 2016 was Cooking Carnival!
April 2017 was AtoZ Baking around the World
September 2017 was Protein Rich Dishes (My choice was AtoZ Bengali Sweets)

April 2018 was Explore the Flavours - A to Z International Street food on SYL
April 2018 was Explore the Flavours - A to Z International Flatbreads on C4AS

September 2018 was "A to Z Flatbreads and More” - A to Z Indian Flatbread on SYL
September 2018 was "A to Z Flatbreads and More” - A to Z Dosa Varieties on C4AS

April 2019 was Festival with "Biryani / Pulao / Khichadi" where I did - A to Z Biryani / Pulao / Khichadi on SYL
April 2019 was Festival with "Biryani / Pulao / Khichadi" where I did - A to Z Quick 30 Minutes Meals on C4AS

September 2019 was Sweets and Snacks where I did - Sweets and Snacks on SYL
September 2019 was Sweets and Snacks where I did - Sweets and Snacks on C4AS

BM#116

Coming back to the September 2020 theme on Thalis and Platters, Saturday's are off.

September 2020 is divided into 5 weeks in the pattern below

Week 1 - 4 days (From Sep 01st to Sep 04th)

Week 2 - 6 days (From Sep 06th to Sep 11th)

Week 3 - 6 days (From Sep 13th to Sep 18th)

Week 4 - 6 days (From Sep 20th to Sep 25th)

Week 5 - 4 days (From Sep 27th to Sep 30th)

I have suggested 5 themes, you can pick any theme for any week. However, you will do the same theme that week.

Each day should feature a new thali.

Which means, you can use a thali that was already posted on your blog before April 2020, but still has 1 new dish to share.

On the number of dishes:

Mini Thalis with 3 to 4 dishes (can include pickle, curds, etc).

Elaborate Thali with at least 6 to 7 dishes (can include pickle, curds, etc).

General rules:

Each day should feature a new thali.

You can share thalis you posted before April 2020.

Your simple assembled thali can highlight either a drink/dry saute/ gravy/rice/roti, along with other regular condiments

Regional cuisines must have only regional specialties of those cuisines

Each day can have only ONE new recipe posted, rest can be either linked to previously shared recipes or can have links to future posts as well.

Simple every day assembled thalis can be of any cuisine, however, each dish should complement each other. (meaning it should have some carb, protein, veggies, etc)

However, if you are featuring theme specific thali like protein rich, it can exclude carbs.

Below are the 5 themes.

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1. Simple every day assembled mini thalis.

- can have a dry saute, a liquid and a starter if required plus all the sides

- 1 Dal, 1 Sabzi, Dahi & Roti/Rice, etc (this will change according to the cuisine you share, for a south Indian thali, roti need not be part of it, though harm in including if that's your style).

- One mini thali can feature any breakfast from any cuisine. Or any special roti from any cuisine as well.

- Though you CAN'T feature only breakfast dishes in this theme. So basically you can do 1 mini breakfast thali, other mini lunch or dinner thalis.

2. Platters (Sandwiches, Chaats, International spreads, Evening Tea Time platters, etc)

- like a sandwich platter - where we can have a variety of sandwiches with some juice or tea to compliment.

3. Thalis featuring Indian Bread.

- The focus is on the bread (which can include Indian Flatbreads & Crepes)

- The thali can have gravies and condiments as Accompaniments.

- The gravies and condiments can feature dishes from your archives as well.

- The thali can be a simple thali with just the Indian Bread with some accompaniment else elaborate one with more side dishes etc.

4. Thalis featuring Regional Cuisines. This thali focuses on perfect traditional Thali

- can be from the different states, different cuisines from the same state as well.

- Again you can do simple Regional cuisine or elaborate thali with the number of dishes listed above.

- we have 4 day week and 6 day week. So either set you have to do an equal number of elaborate and simple thalis. If you want to do elaborate thalis for all through the week, you are most welcome!

5. Breakfasts from different states, each one for each day

Theme based thalis

So for day 1, you can do protein rich

day 2 you do Drinks platter

day 3 you do low cal

day 4 you can do no oil etc

in this theme, you can choose to do 1 breakfast as a theme and continue with other themes as well.

Basically, you can be creative if you are picking up theme based thalis, my examples are just guidance. You can choose to pick any theme and be creative in thinking through it as well.

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The theme was thought through having Indian Cuisine in mind when I decided about Regional cuisines. However, the requirements were coming to include other countries as well. So if you pick France, you will typically do regional cuisines from that country. I am sure it's even a bigger challenge.

Platters can include international cuisines as well.

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The last date for signing up for this BM is 10th Jan 2020. Send in your signup request to [email protected]