Yes i am progressing and so much quicker thanks to this site and its wealth of information.  I make bombay and sag aloo quite a lot since we always have a lot of potatos and love our spinach, it is the easiest curry i make, i say curry as it is really just a side dish but we treat it more like a main dish having this with just rice for dinner quite reguarly.  Hopefully you see why i loved the green bean recipie since it has been hard to find intresting veg ideas to accompany a dish like this.
Anyway my progression these days seems to be just fine tuning what i do, for example just getting the colour and texture right is my main task, easy to make this bombay sag aloo a boring brown colour with the garam massala, tumeric, corriander powder and cumin powder but getting that deep brown orangey brown georgeous mouthwatering colour with lovely oily sheen and just the right texture has been a lot of work and really got to know the spices to get the colour (will never use dye ever) just right and getting the prep and cooking right as well.  I really set out to make what i thought were the classics - bombay/sag aloo, onion bahjee, popadoms, naan, chutneys/raitas, a korma, CTM, rogan josh and madrass.  With this basic recipie knowledge ingrained i would start with the rest. Have conqured (i think) korma, ctm and onion bahjee, hoping my bombay/sag aloo is almost there and tinkering with my rogan josh at the moment so not far to go.
My spice mix seems to be centred around garam massala, corriander/cumin powder, tumeric and chilli powder with paprika being used a lot as well.  This just wasn't cutting it with every curry hence why i have picked up some other popular maybe contraversial spices tamarind included.  Please message me when the bombay aloo group test is on so i can be a part of it, my life is so about bombay aloo at the moment and i make the same dish a lot, time after time neglecting any other dish just hoping to finally get it right.  You said in another thread that on the group test you would use a more basic gravy like or similar to mick and taz's and this is pretty much what i do now so should be a great group test and help me out a lot.
I have waffled a lot and post the other green bean recipie for me, maybe in the same thread as your original green bean recipie, if it's better it goes in my recipie book for sure. So sorry for going on i'm just really loving my curry at the moment. Thanks

Any comments on my pictures of my bombay potatos good or bad are welcomed, is the sauce a nice consistency, is the colour authentic BIR, appart from the mustard seeds this is my version of potato aloo at the moment and just add spinach for sag aloo.  Nice to know i'm hitting the mark, on the right tracks or wether i need to go back to the BIR drawing board!  This is where i really need to get involved in the group tests so that i can have some comparison and feedback. Once again thanks.

This bombay potatos was made using Tamarind deseeded fruit, paprika, chili powder, tumeric, corriander and cumin powder.  The result of using tamarind was a lovely deep brown colour that seemed to lighten the dish and produce a more appelling colour.  Truly the taste and colour are noticable, like and orange brown colour and taste was sweeter and brought together the spices well.  I think i will use tamarind for a lot of my curries after this and have definatly tasted it in resturants before now that i know what i'm looking for.
Does any one on this site use tamarind in their curries, massalas etc?  I am swayed by the great taste and colour and can't help but think in some resturants it might even be in the base gravy.  Any one shed some light on this please?
P.s. a little tamarind goes a bloody long way and only had to add a figernails worth in size.

The cassia bark i buy is generally in straight finger like peices, if i'm lucky there are one inch square peices approx but i generally add a fingers length to two portions of curry.  The trick for me is to taste when cooking as if the curry starts to taste too cinnamony i simply remove the cassia bark.  Although this is not practical for most i have seen people grind their cassia bark down to a powder (must have been hard work as it very tough) and add it that way, could this be a way of portioning it?

Don't grow ocra but have a lot of growing experience in growing plants especially soil, i have grown jalapenos, tomatoes, beans, herbs for few years now.
Ocra can grow from four to six feet tall, bout two to three feet wide. Takes about three months from planting to first crop and although the ocra vegetable itself can grow up to a foot in length it is best picked when only a few inches long as it is still tender and not woody.
How are you starting the seeds of? Will it be an indoor grow, indoor to start with then outdoor or outside in the garden the whole way? I don't recomend planting outdoors till your sure the wether is going to be nice say april/may as the plant loves the sun and heat and hates cold frosts or chills and i don't think that our wether is good enough yet.  Reccomend you start them indoors a month early and plant out in spring. Soak the seeds for a day and then pop them into a peat pellet or small flower pot filled with seedling soil, i use West seedling soil from the indoor part of the gardening section of either BnQ or homebase.  Use a mall pot to allow the soil to dry inbetween waterings.  Plant about double the amount you finally want and when young kill of the weak ones.
Says that ocra plants have spines as well so somthing to take into consideration if planting out in the garden, although pure luck f1 say there not spinless but this could just be the ocra and not the rest of the plant.  F1 means first generation and will grow fast and strong having good genetics.
 Please let me know how it's going and i will try to answer any questions you got.