Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

Rice with moru curry and fish gravy

Fish

Lunch is not an elaborate affair on working days. Most of the days, the Dabba I and Raj carry  has cooked rice and a curry and if time permits some ‘thoran’ / ‘poriyal/fish fry/dry fish or prawn fry.

The rice with fish in coconut milk ( almost like ‘fish molee’ , prepared in my own simple style) and moru curry ( made of curd, ash gourd, plantains and grinded coconut ) was made on Friday. The parboiled rice, we brought from kerala, was grown in the paddy fields of my In-laws. My in- laws and I put a lot of effort in it.  My FIL and MIL toiled in the paddy field along with the farm workers, to produce the grain. And my MIL spend days drying the grain, de husking it, boiling it and FIL got it pounded from the mill. Then I spent few minutes packing the rice 🙂 But the fact that the rice takes a long time to cook even in pressure cooker, makes it inconvenient to cook on working days and so has been labeled under ‘rice to be cooked on Fridays’ .

Vegetables

This Vegetable Rice is a quick lunch I make on busy working days like today. It can’t be called Vegetable Pulav nor Vegetable Biriyani. It is my version, a mix of both, done in quick and easy method. I just chop the vegetable and throw them in the pressure cooker with ghee, add washed and drained rice, salt, masala and water. Switch off the gas in 5-7 mins, let them cook in the pressure . Simple isn’t it ? No sauting , no frying, no garnishing… My Babs too likes it, isn’t that great ?, vegetables easily get added into his food. I used to make it spicy but since Babs too eats this, I now reduce the spice in the rice. Instead I make spicy pudina chutney to go with it.

You can see more yummy lunchtime photos here..