I usually keep the challenging-to-make dishes for some fine day when I will have plenty of time on my hand, when the unicorns will be frolicking and the rainbows will be illuminating the sky.

Yes, the day that never comes! (This sentence just came to me, I hope Metallica does not sue me for copyright infringement of their iconic song)

I have been under a regulated diet for 4 months now and I have cooked dishes that I could never imagine myself doing. I have prepared lauki/bottlegourd millet paratha, mixed dal with a smashing spicy tadka, aloo bhindi stir fry the exact way that my Mom makes and God knows how many permutation-combinations of cheela.

And at one point of time, I only cooked pasta and noodles in home-made sauces, roti, cheela/pancakes, scrambled eggs/tofu/paneer and stir-fried vegetables.

And my nutritionists have very subtly pushed to meal plan and cook healthier meals. Initially I though that I will only cook what is convenient for me and ofcourse, healthy ;). But they said that the more food variety I have in my diet, the more beneficial it is for my health.

So a few days back, I was bored with the options that my dietician had given in the evening time. The last option was hara bhara kebab prepared from commonly available vegetables and cooked in a simple way. I decided to save some spinach for these.

But as usual, I was procrastinating. That I will cook it tomorrow.

And the “tomorrow” finally came today when I just decided to blanch spinach, boil peas and finely cut the vegetables of my stir-fried veggies for a better kebab texture. There was no rainbow in Pune today and the unicorns were also not there.

This was the first time I made a vegetarian kebab. I have prepared mutton shaami kebab before, but that was under the supervision of my Mom. But this time, it was pure cooking intuition that helped me. Some lessons learnt from my Mom came back – that the kebabs take a longer time to cook. I also remembered that whenever kebabs were getting prepared at my home, we used to get impatient with the timing.

So I had to ensure that the mashed mixture that I made into kebabs were crispy from the outside but not mushy from the inside. I reminded myself that these are not gyozas.

The results were not extraordinary but satisfactory. The cooking time was long, but I was cooking them during lunch cooking, so I saved time for the evening.

I had added the spices but forgot to add ginger. Ginger adds another level of desired pungency in cheelas and kebabs.

The Lucknow genes in me spoke today and I think I can finally graduate to complex cooking if I plan my timing and meals well.