What do you do when life throws totally unexpected things at you?

My two cents : duck quickly, especially if life is throwing back those rock hard idlis I made recently!

But a bit of background first : I was down with a throat infection, closely followed by absolute tiredness and body pain. The tooth ache I was neglecting was finally making its point. In the dentist’s chair, I discovered that none of my teeth are going to get a chance to fall on their own, cause I have to take three of them out.  One down now and two more to go.

When I was recovering, my parents who were visiting us, left back to their home. I had lovingly packed idlis for their dinner during travel. I was checking with my mom whether I had left out something while packing the food. Hubby intervened and said : “Don’t forgot to pack a hammer for breaking the idlis.”

Lesson learnt : Go for idli upma, when idlis are rock hard. Now those…those are guaranteed to be soft!

This is my post for Blogging Marathon #21, under the theme ‘Upma Varieties’.  Check out the BM page for more recipes from really talented bloggers!

Serves : 2 + kid

Prep & Cooking time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:

• Leftover idlis            :        6-8
• Onion                           :        1 small, chopped
• Carrot                          :        1 small, chopped
• Beans                           :         8-10, chopped
• Green peas, frozen :        handful
• Chilies/Chili flakes :        1 -2, per taste
• Salt
• Oil

Method:

1. Crumble the leftover idlis fine. I had kept the idlis in the fridge, so they crumbled easily without any problem. Keep aside.
2. Heat a teaspoon of oil and saute the onions till pink. Add the other vegetables and cover and cook for about 5 minutes till done. If you want, you can sprinkle a bit of water too. I cooked the vegetables in the MW (covered) for about 4 minutes.
3. Add salt and chilies or chili flakes and cook for a minute more. Add the crumbled idlis and mix thoroughly. Do this in a medium flame, or else the idlis might get stuck to the bottom of the pan.
4. You can mix the crumbled idlis with idli podi also.
5. Serve as such or with chutney/sambar.