Fried Veggies: Many in One

We all want varieties in our meals, don't we? Who would want to eat the same fried rice for both lunch and dinner? Or who would really want to have only biscuits for tea time snacks?! We do want to try out new stuffs, but at the same time, the one working on it often ends up exhausted trying out too many varieties on the same day. So, I came up with something that can ease out things for you, but at the same time it still provides variety to everyone at home.

Using one base recipe, we can derive at below three (or even more) variety of dishes:
1. Fried Rice
2. Spring Rolls/ Fried Momos
3. Steamed Momos
4. Others: Veg Noodles, Macaroni

Many in One

At first, prepare the fried veggies in bulk and keep it aside. Next, you may decide to either cook rice  for lunch(fried rice), or prepare dough for momos for evening snacks (steamed or fried).

Ingredients:

• Vegetables: 2 onions, 2 Carrots, beans, 1 capsicum, lots of cabbage, onion springs
• Minced Ginger and Garlic 
• Salt and Pepper
• Oil for frying
• Equal quantities of maida(all purpose floor) & wheat floor for preparing momo dough
• Cooked Rice for fried rice

Preparing Fried Veggies:

• Chop all vegetables into small pieces. 
• In a large pan, add sufficient oil. Once it becomes hot, add ginger, garlic and then onion. 
• Once this turns golden, add rest of the vegetables and cook them on medium flame without adding water. You may close it with a lid for faster cooking, but remember to keep stirring it frequently.
• After around 5-7 minutes, you will notice that the veggies turn a little translucent, indicating that its cooked. It better to leave the vegetables a little crunchy. Add onion springs and cook for less than a minute. Now add salt and pepper powder. Stir well and turn off the flame. 
• Keep some veggies aside for momos and use the rest to prepare fried rice as mentioned below.

Preparing Fried Rice:

• To the same pan which has the fried veggies, add a spoon of soy sauce. Saute on high flame for a minute and turn off flame. 
• Then add cooked-and-cooled rice and mix well. 
• Adjust salt & pepper as per taste. Your fried rice is now ready to be served.

Preparing Momos Outer sheets:

• Mix equal quantities of wheat flour and maida. 
• Add salt and water. Mix well to bring it to the consistency of poori dough. 
• Keep it covered for 20mins before rolling them.

Preparing Fried/Steamed Momos:

• Make round balls out of the dough and press them flat with a rolling pin.
• Now at the center of the flattened dough, place the vegetable fillings as shown below.
• Slowly pinch and bring the edges together and seal them.
• This is now ready to be deep fried (medium flame) or steamed in a cooker (medium flame, without whistle, for 15mins).

Spring Rolls/Fried Momos

Steamed Momos

Note:

• Momos turn out very delicious when we add cabbage in large quantities.
• To get an Indian flavor, you can choose to garnish the veggies with chopped coriander leaves instead of onion spring.
• Both momos and fried rice tastes best when served with tomato/chili sauce.
• For more spice, you can add chopped green chilies while preparing fried veggies, or alternatively use hot spicy sauce.
• Instead of adding cooked rice, you can choose to cook noodles or macaroni, and add the same fried veggies to it. This gives you veg noodles/ veg macaroni and adds variety at home.

Inner Beauty

We reached the school at 10:15 am. I was happy to be there well ahead of time. Our appointment with the Principal was scheduled at 10:40 am. We were here to seek admission for my daughter for her second grade. As me and my daughter stood there scanning around, we noticed that the lobby was filled with quite a lot of applicants. Kids of age groups starting from probably five to fifteen were there – all waiting for their turn. We walked towards two empty seats and sat beside a man who suddenly smiled, not at us, but at his mobile phone.He was hooked to his phone. As we sat, I could see an old couple, in their 60s, sitting opposite us. There was a little girl beside them, mostly their grand-daughter who was in her early teens. She was dressed in denim, and looked very stylish for her age. She had straight long hair with beautiful bangs. I could see ear-pods plugged into her ears and she seemed lost in her own world. At the far end of the lobby, I could see two little boys impressing one another with their fidget spinners.

Beside me, was a mother-daughter duo just like us. Looking at them, it was very clear that they came from a very simple family. Their looks, their clothing, their body language all looked very simple, yet neat and crisp. While the mother was getting her papers ready, the girl, who was around my daughter’s age was unwrapping a peanut chikki. Her mother did not talk much, however the girl seemed very chirpy to me, which drew my attention towards her.

She asked her mom “How’s chikki prepared Amma?”

Her mother, preoccupied with the documents replied “With peanuts and... sugar of course.”

As the girl munched her chikki, she once again questioned her mom “Amma, my tooth here hurts a lot as I chew this sweet, does it mean there is a cavity in there?”

The lady, with her head bent down, still verifying her papers, replied “Finish your snack quickly, ours is next.”

The little girl popped the remaining chikki into her mouth. Fixing her hair she asked her mother “Is my hair too oily Amma?”

Her mom now lifted her head up, looked at the girl and began “Yes dear, it indeed is a little oily, but that doesn’t make you any less adorable. It’s how well you are going to answer today that will be making you look adorable. It’s your confidence, your attitude and your mental skills which will brighten the beauty in you”. She continued “Dress only to look neat and elegant, nothing beyond that. Don’t you think people like Sudha Murthy, Abdul Kalam and even your grand-mother are a perfect example of this? Now let’s go in with a smile and give your best sweetheart. Your attitude will add on more beauty to you which your dress or hair can’t!” Saying this, she grabbed the girl sideways by her shoulders and kissed her cheeks and said “love you”.

I was simply awed by the young lady’s response and nudged my daughter in admiration who was listening to all this silently. There came her timely response at once: "DO NOT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS..." and in unison we said..."COVER" as we all chuckled together softly. 

Looks matter, I agree. But in an attempt to impress others, if one starts working too much on their appearance, then rest of the aspects will be side-tracked, especially among kids. So teach your children to look neat and presentable. Nurture young minds to learn to strive towards enhancing their skills and talents.  Let their whole potential be used to intensify their inner beauty, not in enhancing their outer beauty. And always remember, "Never judge a book by its cover". You never know what lies inside.