D's suggestion - baked potatoes with sour cream

Dont need to write anything here. Bake potatoes with skin. Serve with sour cream.

Yes, there's a theme to the last few recipes undispudedly ;)

Alu tikki chole

Chole
Soak and boil (pressure cook for 15 mins. Some people add a tea bag for dark brown colour. Suggest adding whole spices - badi elaichi, cinnamon, cloves and a red chilli) chick peas. Or buy can.
Gravy - onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes. Grind, saute in good amount of oil. Add salt, chilli powder, garam masala, jeera powder, turmeric (just a dot). Once this has cooked, and the oil separates, add the boiled chana and let it simmer or pressure cook for two whistles. The consistency should be thick. Not watery. To do that, you could mash up some of the chana.

Tikki
Mash boiled potatoes. Add green chilli, coriander, salt, bread crumbs. Shape into tikkis and shallow fry on tava.

While serving, hot hot crisp on the outside tikkis, chole on top, chopped onions, coriander, sweet tamarind chutney, green chutney, dahi(optional, but  like)
 Totally makeable. Tastes fantastic even without the chutneys.

Alu chaat and chutneys

It's a good idea to keep some potatoes boiled.

Chaat needs chutneys.
Dhania chutney - green chillies, coriander big bunch, salt, sugar. Grind
Add on - one small onion/garlic

Mint chutney - same as above. Replace dhania with mint leaves. Wash and separate leaves for this one. Can add coriander leaves.

Tamarind chutney

Jaggery, tamarind concentrate, black salt, roasted jeera, dates. If not using paste from a jar, soak tamarind in water until it softens. Retrieve pulp. Discard seeds and other bits. If adding dates, soak dates. Boil in so.e water, pulp, jaggery and all other ingredients. You could add dried ginger. Add salt and red chilli powder. Reduce to chutney consistency.


Back to chaat
Two types. This one is the one you get in CP, fried in a big tava and really good in winters. Cube boiled potatoes. Shallow fry till golden brown. Top with chat masala (if that's an issue - roast jeera powder, salt, red chilli powder, black salt will do)
Green chutney. Slivers of radish or ginger. Can squeeze lime.  Top with dhania. Have hot with toothpick. Chaat is pretty much up to you..

The cold kind
Cube boiled potatoes. Can add chopped onions and tomatoes and green chillies. Add bhujia (alternatives - nachos?) Top with curd and chutneys and coriander.

Vermisilly

Did I tell you I wanted to have a hundred entries before telling you about it? 

Just goes to show how perfect the title is.

Kadhai. Heat oil. add jeera, bayleaf. fry. Chop and fry onions, green chillies, any veg- carrot, beans, peas, potato, capsicum (or none), a few groundnuts. Meanwhile, keep boiling water ready. Add semia/vermicelli to the sauteed onions and roast for about 10 mins. The roasting helps avoid gluggy upma disasters. Add salt. Pour boiling water - enough to just cover vermicelli. And cook. Take off flame. Let it rest. If all is well, the vermicelli will be separate noodly entities. Top up with chopped coriander. 

Rasam

You need to soak tamarind and cook some dal (thoor) in advance.

Smash/ grind tomato, add to water. Add turmeric, hing, kadipatta, salt, a  of sugar, umm what else?
Boil till level reduces. Add tamarind water, cooked dal, rasam powder and let all of this boil a bit.

Chownk with rai, hing, jeera. Ghee chownk.
Cut up some coriander and you may want to squeeze lime for fresh smell and some tang.

To make rasam powder - dry roast jeera, black pepper, dhania, red chilli, thoordal. Grind.

Biryani -the non fuss variety

I know, I know, Im awesome :)

So Biryani you said. So here's how I made that.

Onions, ginger, garlic, green chilli, raw jeera, garam masala,  cashew nuts - grind.

In the cooker, heat oil. Add ghee or butter. Add a stick of cinnamon, a few cloves, a couple if bay leaves and a couple of green cardomoms. Add masala. Fry on low heat till oil separates. You could remove this paste and keep aside (but it works even if you dont)

Add sliced potatoes, carrots, anything else ( if adding soya chunks, soak in water till they bloat, then add), fry a bit. Add washed and drained rice (if it's clean, you could add pour out of the packet into the cooker). Fry this a bit. If you have kept the fried gravy separate, now is the time to add it. Add salt.

Grind a bunch of coriander leaves and add.

Add water till it covers everything plus a centimetre.

Cook 2 whistles in low heat.

There you go :)

Works well with papad and raita. So it's not just carbs, add either paneer or soya chunks or have with boiled egg