Roz Ka Khana

When my son started public school, I discovered something about myself that I didn’t know before. I actually enjoyed packing his lunches! I liked to plan out a weekly menu for him just like his school calendar, scour the various blogs and sites for back-to-school lunch ideas and yes, also make his lunch look colorful enough for him to want to eat it! It felt very satisfying to pack greens, nuts, veggies, fruits and grains and get a lunch review from him every day. On most days the lunches come back empty, and on some, there are a few half eaten bites. The rule is to leave everything in the box so I can keep track of what he is eating every day.

I tried to be a little more creative than packing mac n cheese and PBJ and being vegetarian, I also had to ensure there was enough protein and fibre in his lunches. And so began the search for a lunch box that would go beyond the basic brown bag. Laptop Lunches did the needful for me! The simple, colorful, plastic containers were just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing and make those lunches look edible too. What follows is a series of some lunch ideas for your school goer…and it works for those work lunch totes too.

Sprouts and Potato Sandwich

Ingredients:

Moong Sprouts – 1/2 cup

Potatoes – boiled and mashed – 2

Whole wheat bread – 4-6 slices

Chaat masala – 1 tsp

Onion, chopped – 1 medium

Green chilies – 1, finely chopped

1. You can prepare the filling the night before. Boil and mash the potatoes, add the onion, green chilies, chaat masala, salt to taste. Mix well.

2. The next morning, preheat the sandwich maker. Butter each slice of bread, add the filling in between, and toast the bread till golden.

Note: You can also add green chutney to this mixture before you add the filling to the buttered slices. Adds some spice to it, so this may be an option for the grown up lunches.

To pack Nikhil’s lunch, I used a kitchen shear to cut the sandwich into smaller triangles, and added orange wedges and yoghurt to make it a filling laptop lunch!

Another staple Amma’s recipe. This dish brings back memories of school, when Amma would make this piping hot for breakfast and I would love it so much that I would take the same dish for lunch! There are many ways to make this “upma” and most recipes I know have onion and/or tomato, but I prefer it without, the bread is a little more “crispier” and I absolutely love the mustard/urad dal combination and eat it plain after I’m done snacking on all the bread!

Ingredients:

Sourdough bread (1/2 loaf). (You can also use plain white bread that’s a couple of days old). I haven’t tried it with whole wheat bread or rye bread, which you could use for a little more nutritious boost.

Yoghurt – 1/4 cup

Chutney powder (also called dosai mulagai podi in Tamil) – 2 tsp, or to taste

Curry leaves – a sprig

Mustard seeds – 2 tsp

Urad dal – 2 tsp

Salt to taste

Dry red chilies – 3

Oil – 1 tbsp

1. Break the bread into small bite size pieces or cubes. Add the yoghurt mixed with the curry powder to the bread. Let the bread soak in the yoghurt mixture for a few minutes till it gets soft.

2. Heat the oil in a wok or skillet. Add the mustard seeds, urad dal.

3. After this crackles, add the curry leaves and dry red chilies.

4. Now add the bread to the hot oil and mix with the mustard seeds /urad dal tadka.

5. Heat on a low flame for about 5 minutes till the bread starts to look a little “fried”, while stirring occasionally.

6. Enjoy piping hot!

Did I mention that this is one of Nikhil’s (my son) favorites too? He has obviously imbibed my taste buds…Bread Upma is one of his lunch box staples and his Paatti (grandma) makes it for him at least once a week or once every two weeks! Like mom, like son!

Making chapathis or rotis have not been my forte and I usually rely on the Indian store bought rotis and parathas that look like naan-lavash hybrids (types of Indian and Mediterranean flatbreads). And you would think they would at least half taste like naan, but most of them feel like crisp papads (cracker-like) by the time they get from the stove/microwave to the plate. I know, it’s not all that hard as I hear some folks say, but my idea of good rotis are fresh, home made and hot off the stove. The home made part is probably easy but the fresh and hot off the stove part..um..given my crazy schedule and probably dozens of others out there, is easier said than done.

And so when the price of rice hit the $25 per 20lb. bag mark, I had no choice but to look for ways to change our daily rice-loaded menu and dot it with more whole grain options. But I had to figure out how to make this work into my roti making skills, or lack thereof.

Parathas were my answer! Unlike rotis which need to be just the right shape, the right thickness, the right amount of heat to make them puff up on the stove..(too much pressure)…parathas, in my opinion are easier to pass off. They can be thin or thick, rolled into triangles or any other shape (!) and can also be stuffed with vegetables or other spices.  And so, when my friend Radhika K gave me an idea for tomato parathas, I had to try them out. Versatile is the word for parathas. They stay soft enough to last from breakfast through lunch and make the perfect ingredient for roll ups as well.

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp besan (gram flour)

2 vine ripened tomatoes

1/2 tsp turmeric pd

1/2 inch ginger grated

2-3 green chilies (the Indian or Thai variety)

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

1/2 tsp jeera or cumin seeds

a pinch asafoetida (hing)

Salt to taste

1. Grind all the above ingredients (except the wheat and gram flours) to make a paste.

2. Add the flours to this paste and knead using a food processor (or your hands) to make a dough that’s not too sticky and not too dry.

3. Divide the dough into small balls. Roll each ball into a paratha (see here for directions on how to roll parathas)

4. Serve hot with a little butter or ghee (clarified butter) spread on the parathas. You can also serve these parathas with some mango pickle and yoghurt for that perfect meal!

I haven’t mustered the courage (call it timeliness) to submit any of my entries to a food blog event…but it’s always nice to read them all after the event is done. It’s like having a cookbook full of recipes to choose from! So when I saw Nupur’s blog at One Hot Stove, calling for entries for “Less is More” or recipes that call for 5 ingredients or less, I thought of submitting this recipe that I got from my dear friend PM. The only problem was that this was an original recipe, not borrowed from another blog as the event called for. So, as usual, I waited..for the event to be done, so I could, once again, read them all and maybe experiment later.

The dish, that I very plainly call “Sprouts and Salsa” is something that I do want to share, not as an entry to the event, but more for its simplicity. It’s literally that..Sprouts with salsa and some seasoning to create a dish that tastes much like Indian moong dal!

Ingredients:

Green gram sprouts (moong dal sprouts) – 1cup

Salsa (hot) - 1/4 cup

Garam Masala – 1/2 to 1 tsp

Chopped cilantro – 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

1. Soak the moong beans overnight and leave them for a couple of hours until they germinate. You can find a detailed description on how to sprout moong beans here.

2. Take a saucepan or a heavy bottom vessel. Add the hot salsa and heat over a low flame for a few minutes.

 3. Add the garam masala. You may also add some chopped green chiles for added spice.

4. While the salsa is cooking a little, cook the moong sprouts. Take the sprouts in a microwave safe bowl, add a thin layer of water and cook on high heat for about 1 to 1 1/2 minutes.

5. Add the steamed moong to the salsa. Add salt. Mix well and cook for another 5 minutes. Garnish with chopped cilantro and serve hot with chapatis or rice.