Carrot Sesame Basil Salad

It was one of those days when I just could not bring myself to cook anything in the morning. Also I did not have much in the fridge.
So I pulled out a few carrots and three sachets of the of ketchup.

The sliced the carrots...

...and then got out some iceberg lettuce and basil leaves that I had in the fridge...

I quickly chopped the basil...

...and then mixed half of the basil with the shredded lettuce...

I did not want the carrots to be too much of a 'chew' in the carrot, so I microwaved the carrots for a minute and then mixed the rest of the shredded basil with this.

I'd mixed them separately as this way the basil would mix better I thought. 

After this I started making the dressing. I cut and poured all the ketchup into a small bowl...

... then I put in a teaspoon of dark soya sauce...

... and added a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar...

I tossed everything together, added the dressing, and then topped everything with sesame seeds and some kalonji.

It was time to pack the salad and then quickly rush off to office after this.

Kalo Jeeray Kumrow

I gravitate towards a set lot of vegetables that stay ok in the fridge for a while and are easy to chop and cook in the morning. So, this time around, I wanted to buy something that I don't normally buy.

I bought myself half a large pumpkin (or কুমড়ো/kumro in Bengali)   and then wondered what I'd cook with it. Morning soon came and presented me with 20 minutes to rustle something up for lunch. Owing to its sheer dint of volume, the kumro/pumpkin was the first thing I laid my hand on when I reached for the vegetable tray.

I sliced off a crescent of the pumpkin and then looked around for inspiration to cook with.

I washed, peeled and sliced the pumpkin into little pieces and then decided to use as little as possible to cook. I realized that it would take sometime to cook so I nuked the pieces for a 2 minutes after spraying some water on them and covering them.

I had a few green chillies that the Sita (the vegetable seller) had throw in gratis. Two of them came to my rescue as did some কালো জিরে/kalo jeeray (as Bengalis know it) or kalonjee and a couple of bay leaves.

I put in a generous splash of mustard oil and smoked it before adding everything in and then tossed things around for a while. Then I covered the pan and turned the gas down to sim and started getting ready. 
I came back to a well cooked meal to which I added some salt and packed for lunch.