Suji / rava/ semolina is one of the most versatile food in my kitchen. It can be quickly made into a variety of dishes in case guests come suddenly. So, to make the task easier, best is to either buy roasted rava or once you buy, clean and roast it well, cool and store.
In case, you want to make upma quickly, add you need to do is seasoning, then fry onion or other veges in case you're using, add depending on the type of rava either double or little less of water, once it boils, add salt and add roasted suji as needed.
The trick when you make upma is roast rava well. Then once I fry veges, I add the rava and mix it well, I keep boiling water separately, and pour and keep stirring, by doing that you can always adjust the amount of water your rava will need. As some rava will take double the amount of water, some if it is fine variety will take only equal amount of water. I prefer thicker variety, as it fluffs up and you get more quantity of upma.
One of my other favourite is sheera or kesari as we South Indians call it. Of course, it is served as kada prasad in Gurudwara with plenty of ghee flowing in it. I don't add that much ghee, but to enhance the taste, I add milk almost equal or more than water to cook it.
My mother's favourite dish was eggless rava cake ! All these recipes are there in my blog. The other quick one you can make is rava adai, provided you've some curd or buttermilk to mix it. In case you don't have, don't fret, in one post I've mentioned how to make buttermilk or substitute for it. so, try that ! Good luck to all, prayers for god health and the pandemic to go from this earth, so sanity can come.