What's for lunch honey? Spicy potato 'n' peas rice

Lunch time is probably what we all look forward to at work, especially when the Monday morning blues hit hard...I packed this spicy rice for lunch one day and it sure did rattle our sleepy heads back to action! I quite like to pack different kinds of flavoured rice for lunch as it is 'spill-free' and easy to handle :-)

• cooked basmati rice, 2 cups (for M & me)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 potato, diced into small bits
• 1/2 cup green peas
• a few curry leaves
• oil, 2tbspns
• 1/2 spoon jaggery (molasses), you could also use sugar
• 1/4 tspn tamarind paste
• for the spiced powder - 1 tbspn split chana dal, 1 tspn split urad dal, 5 dry red chillies, 1/4tspn jeera (cumin), 1/4tspn saunf (fennel seeds), a tiny bit of a cinnamon bark, 2 cloves
• salt to taste

1. Dry roast all the ingredients for the powder in a frying pan.
2. When cool, grind in a blender to get a fairly coarse powder (neither too fine nor too coarse)
3. Heat oil in a deep pan/wok.
4. Add curry leaves.
5. Next add chopped onion and saute for a while.
6. Add potato and peas and cook till soft.
7. Tip in the ground powder from your blender.
8. Add jaggery, tamarind paste and salt.
9. Mix well and cook for a couple of minutes.
10. Once well amalgamated, add the cooked rice and mix well.
11. Serve with plain yogurt.

For a variation, you can use brinjal (eggplant) or capsicum.