This is my go to pulao recipe when I have no idea what to cook and running out of time. This is quick, easy, colorful , and yummy – yay for veg recipes!

• 1 carrot – shredded
• 1 cup peas and corn
• 1 1/2 cups basmati rice
• 1/2 onion – sliced thinly
• 1/2 tsp jeera (cumin seeds)
• 1/2 tsp powdered black pepper (or to taste)
• 2 tsps oil
• 1 tsp ghee

• Soak the rice for ten to fifteen minutes.
• Heat the oil and ghee in a pan. Add the cumin seeds and pepper.
• When slightly browned, add the onions and fry till translucent.
• Next, add the carrot, peas, and the corn and fry for a few minutes till the raw smell of the carrot is gone.
• Add the soaked rice and fry for a few minutes (about 4 to 5 mins). (The photo I have is at this stage)
• Now transfer this to a rice cooker, add 2 1/4 cups of water along with salt, mix and let it cook.
• Serve with cucumber raitha.

Tuesday Memes:
Top Ten
Tuesdays: This week’s theme at The Broke and Bookish is the Top Ten Books I Want To Give As Gifts (and to who…even if you won’t actually give them!)

This list was both easy and hard to come up with. I am always recommending books to people (friends, colleagues, cousins, people I meet in libraries, book stores, at school!) but to actually buy a book for someone, I need to really know them and at least a little bit of their reading habits. So here is my list (for some of them, I have a specific recipient(s), for the rest, I have been buying it for friends/kids hoping they will fall in love with the book and will continue doing so)

1. For my son who is of late showing genuine interest in birds – any book about birds will do but i found a few which I am actually contemplating (since i might end up getting only one of them, I put them all under #1)

3. The complete set of Tintin comics – My brother loves the series (as do I). So this will be a great gift at sometime not decided yet, for him and one for myself. Now that my son is starting to enjoy the series as well and what with the movie that is out – Tintin is everywhere.
4. The complete set of Asterix comics – Again, my brother and I love this. We grew up reading Asterix’s adventures. My favorite character in these comics is Getafix, the druid! I love his sense of humor. 
5. The complete Calvin and Hobbes set- One more set of books that my brother and I love – this series, unlike the earlier two, was something we did not grow up reading but rather discovered and grew to love it while in two different continents! Again, a great favorite of my son as well so buying this as a gift for anyone of my family members kind of means i am doing it for myself as well!

9. Technical books/management books – for my husband(as I have mentioned earlier as well, my husband can read these for hours like I devour fiction)
10. Cutting for Stone – this was another recent read I really loved and would be great for a friend of mine, who is a doctor.
And one more – Any ‘How To Draw’ book – for all budding artists I know