Quick Recipe for 'Home Alone' Dinners

I share the 'Home Alone' posts only after the 'Home Alone' phase is over and there is only one reason behind it. Security. Kreative Korner is a public blog. Though, I can see how many people visited the blog or from which part of the globe they are and which browser was used, I have no idea who they are. I am aware that all of you are sweethearts, genuinely nice people, who pay me a visit here but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

This post was drafted on Wednesday (today is Sunday), after coming over the dilemma of 'what to eat'! The question usually is 'What to cook?' when your mouth is not the only one to feed but it gets worse when your stomach is the only stomach that you have to fill. For three reasons: One, there is nobody to suggest what to cook. Two, it's difficult to beat laziness and cook only for yourself. Three, you know you'd get no help in the kitchen.

Sanket had been away for almost the entire week. He left on Monday even before I was home from work. I skipped dinner on Monday. Then on Tuesday. Wednesday I knew I had to eat something, more because I fast on Thursdays than because I was hungry. Being back from work a little after 9 plus the humidity, I knew I did not want to spend much time in the kitchen.

Rescue Recipe : Curd Rice

I quickly asked I-Know-It-All, Mr. Google and this recipe from Indian Food was shortlisted.

Here's my version of it. No big changes but I am sure it did change the taste to some extent.

Serves 1 : Remember we are talking about 'Home Alone' recipe

Ingredients:

~ 1/2 cup Rice

~ 1 cup Water

~ 3 tbsp of Yogurt (Curd)

~ 2 tbps of your regular Cooking Oil (refined soyabean, vegetable, coconut)

~ 1/2 tsp of Mustard Seeds

~ 1 sprig of Curry Leaves

~ 1 tbsp of Chana Daal ( Bengal Gram)

~ 1 tbsp of Urad Daal ( Split Black Gram Skinless)

~ Red Chilli Powder to taste

~ Salt to taste

Method

~ Wash and soak chana daal and urad daal in water. Keep aside.

~ Cook Rice: In a microwave safe bowl, add rice and water and cook in microwave for 5 minutes. Rice can alternatively be prepared in a cooker.

~ Once the rice is cooked, add yogurt and salt to it and keep aside.

~ In a pan, heat oil.

~ Once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds to it, followed by chana daal, urad daal and curry leaves.

~ Cook till the daals look cooked ( change to light golden brown color). I kept almost 1 tsp of this mixture aside for garnishing.

~ Add red chilli powder.

~ After a couple of seconds, add the rice mixture.

~ Cook on low flame, till the curd gets cooked. You can make out that the curd is cooked when you can no longer see it and oil separates. A lot of people might want to stop the cooking process much earlier but this is how I prefer.

~ Garnish with the daal mixture kept aside earlier.

Time

Total time: 15 mins

And if you already have rice ready, like I did, it takes less time than your instant noodles! 

Curd Rice is the latest addition to my 'can-cook-anytime' recipe list. Have you got more such recipes to share with me? Let me hear about them.