Last night, after  long night at work, I tried to think up a quick, easy dish. I remembered my cousin making kichidi for her kids in about 20 mins  few months ago. But I also wanted to mix it up little. so…I combined two recipes into what I realized today when I ate it for lunch, tasted like “olan kichidi”. Olan is a keralan dish made of coconut milk, a squash, and black eyed peas.  Kichidi is a comfort food made of lentils and rice.

What did I do?

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup rice (I used a mix of purple and jasmine rice that I had in the cupboard)
• 1/2 cup black lentils
• 1/4 cup adzuki beans (instead of black eyed peas)
• 1 can of coconut milk
• 1/4-1/2 c frozen veggies (you can use fresh or butternut squash or pumpkin. I used what I had handy)
• 1 t coriander seeds
• 1 t cumin seeds
• 1 t turmeric
• 1 t ginger
• 1 t gram masala
• 1 t chili powder

I threw all of the ingredients into a rice cooker along with 2 cups of water. About 20-30 mins later (when the rice cooker thought it was ready), I stirred it up, added salt to taste, and added another cup of water (it wasn’t fully cooked. you want it a little mushy, but not soupy or porridge like, so use as much as you need to get it to cook and be  little mushy). Enjoy.