Does New Music Suck or Am I Just Getting Old? (via ruralturtles)

Excellent site from Patrick O’Conner!

It's not a rhetorical question. From about the age of 8 until sometime in high school, I used to listen to America's Top 40 nearly every week. From then until I was in my mid-twenties I didn't keep up religiously but I still had a rough idea as to what was popular. I still enjoy music, but for the most part my iPod is loaded with all of the stuff I enjoyed listening to when I had the time and inclination to keep up. While I might download the occ … Read More

via ruralturtles

Pork Loin gets Garden Fresh

Vidalia onions freshly harvested

My brown thumb has yielded little produce from our garden, but even with my neglect a few plants have managed to grow. The onions were significantly larger than last year, although still small by grocery store standards. Spacing them out a little farther (4 in instead of 3 in) and keeping them better weeded (although as not as well weeded as I should have,) I believe were two of the contributing factors. One of the major differences this year from last is that I limed the soil before I planted anything. I used the granulated form, which is supposed to release slower over the season. This also might have contributed to the better harvest. The hardest part, I’ve found, is keeping on top of the weeds!

We recently had a meal that came almost completely from the garden. Tony picked up pork loins on sale, so this made one of the cheapest meals we’ve had in a long time. Here are the recipes below.

Pork with Herbs

1 12-inch pork loin
1/2 cup onion, sliced
4-5 garlic cloves, crushed gently with knife
6-7 fresh basil leaves
1 sprig fresh rosemary, leaves removed
1 spring fresh oregano, leaves removed
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil

First place the lion fat side down on a baking sheet and rub with olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Arrange basil leaves, garlic and onions on top. Sprinkle over oregano and rosemary. Bake at 350 degrees uncovered for 90 min. Baste over with juices halfway through baking and then again before serving. This looks beautiful on a plate, with the herbs crusted on the top of the loin.

Butter Potatoes

7-8 small potatoes, quartered
1/4 cup butter
salt and pepper to taste

Boil potatoes until soft. Drain and mix with butter, salt and pepper.

Such a simple recipe, but always wonderful.

Turnip Greens

2 Turnips with greens attached
4-5 cloves garlic, slightly crushed with knife
1/2 cup sliced onions
2 Tbl sugar
1 tsp salt
1 Tbl Worcestershire sauce
hot sauce, to taste

Chop turnips and greens. Add enough water to cover and bring to a boil. Add onions, garlic and seasonings and cook for 1-2 hours.

Greens are best cooked for a long time. Serve with Tomato Relish if you have it around.

New Year, new garden, new mac and cheese

So, we have made it to warm weather.  My peas are taking off fantastically and are now in full flower.  Even though we let the garden go completely last summer, we managed to till it all back up in February for Valentine’s day planting.

New this year – potatoes!  They are doing very well, but now I have to figure out how to harvest them.  I am always leery about root vegetables, because they are hidden from view.  It’s times like these I wish I had superhero powers so I could see through the dirt and check to see if the potatoes were ripe or not.  More on this later after I research.

I used a lot of saved seed from last year, so that cut down on a lot of the costs of this year’s garden.  We tilled it up with the shovel, which was much easier than last year when we shoveled through the sod.  Grass and weeds had overtaken most of the patch, but they were not as tough to extract.  We still have a major weed problem, even with hay covering half of the garden space, so the hoe is my best friend at the moment.  I love to dig in the dirt after the rain – so satisfying.

Our experiment in limited meat is going fairly well, considering that Tony and I are both in stressful college programs and crazy most every hour of the day.  We have not found a source of organic, grain-fed, or free-range meat, so we have resorted to using little meat in our cooking.  This rule bends a bit for cookouts with the cub scouts, when hot dogs are the main staple.

My new favorite recipe is from my brother, Jason, and although it breaks some of my high ideals of cooking from scratch, it is most wonderful and pleasing to all in the house.

2 boxes macaroni and cheese

1 stick butter

1/2 cup milk

1 can diced tomatoes

1 pound ground turkey

1/2 cup onion, diced

1 tsp Italian seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

Cook mac and cheese noodles.  While waiting, cook turkey meat.  When meat is done, add onions and continue cooking until tender.  Stir cheese packet, butter and milk into macaroni noodles.  Add meat and seasonings.  Serve to happy children and adults.

Excited about peas

Spring has passed, unusually cool for Southern Georgia, and with it has gone planting and classwork.  All the seeds have magically transformed into strong foot tall plants, which seem to climb higher overnight.  I don’t think I’ll ever be free of the amazement of it all.

Today I got my first taste of Spring peas.  I didn’t think life could get better after my first taste of homegrown broccoli, but I was terribly wrong.  I don’t recall ever having fresh peas, except maybe on the salad bar at Ruby Tuesday’s.  Pretty much, I don’t recall having anything fresh out of the garden escaping a few tomatoes and cucumbers.  Fresh peas taste exactly like spring.  Finding the ripe pods on my pea plants after a heavy rain yesterday, I ran back inside to show my discovery to my husband.  He was as amazed as I was.  He’s not a fan of peas.  But he was a good sport and ate one anyway.

Today I set out, bowl in hand, to gather up some peas, lettuce greens, green onions and baby radishes.  I added some chopped apples and ham (from last nights dinner,) and poured on a little pepper, oil and vinegar (some gourmet Italian kind I had picked up from the dented can store – I love when I find something fancy for cheap.) It was the best lunch I’ve had in a long time.  So good that of course I had to get right on the computer and brag about it.

Salad before prepping

I now have the impression that everyone should have their own garden.  There’s no reason not too.  Oh, it’s hard work… I hate the sun… I’m too busy… Nope!  These are all pathetic excuses.  I have tasted the fresh picked green pea, and I am certain that no one should go through life without this experience.

salad post prepping

How Tomato Relish Changed My Life

A few months ago, I visited Granny B’s house, and she set before me a jar of tomato relish.  Relish, to me, was of the pickle variety and was made for plopping on top of hot dogs and stirring into potato salad.  I didn’t know other kinds existed.  The jar looked suspiciously like salsa, so I was hesitant to put too much on top of my rice (as all around the table were doing,) so I added just a little dab.  WA – POW!  The tomato relish hit my taste buds with much satisfaction!  I heaped two or three more spoonfuls onto my rice.  I added a spoonful to my greens.  Even the ham needed some, I thought.  I was a changed woman.  From then on, tomato relish would be a staple in my refrigerator.  It would come out to the table every time we had rice.  Granny B gave me the recipe, and I ran home to make it straightaway.

I will include here the wonderful recipe.  I devulged it to the Metter Advertiser as well when I was featured as the Good Cook of the week (brag brag,) but for those of you who made it and wondered why it didn’t taste right….. that would be because I left out the 2 cups of sugar.  Yeah, it’s a pretty essential ingredient, and really the reason that the stuff tastes so good.  Hey!  The best stuff is bad for you.  What can I say?

So, without further ado:

Granny B’s Tomato Relish

2 qt. tomatoes (or 2 cans)

1 cup vinegar

2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups bell pepper, diced

1 1/2 cups onion, diced

1 Tbl. salt

1 Tbl. pepper

Cook for 30 min.  or until onions and peppers are done.

Simple, huh?

We eat a lot of this, so I put it up in glass canning jars and keep it in the fridge.  If you made a whole mess of it, you could seal the jars in a canner.  I would say 10 min would do it.  I actually have a grand plan to plant an insane amount of tomato plants this spring and put up many jars of tomato relish.  We’ll see how that pans out later.

I thought of putting this recipe on here because I had a big helping of tomato relish over rice for lunch.  I cooked up some bacon and crumbled it over the top, and had leftover apple muffins with it. Yes, not the healthiest lunch in the world.  I am packing on a nice layer before spring so I can have all the energy to work in the garden.  It’s part of the plan.

happy lunch

Speaking of the plan, I thought I would give a heads up that some of my spring seeds have already come in and more are on the way.  I will include my garden plan on here later, as it is a nice example of practical companion planting.  We have a lot of digging to do, since the spring garden is twice the size of the winter one.  I also planned for an herbal garden in the front and a strawberry patch on the side of the house.  Hopefully some of these seeds will actually sprout, and my neighbors won’t have to look at bare dirt for too long.

Cookies make me happy.

So, I return to cookie making.  Yes, cookies make me happy, and my jar does not stand long-empty before I am back in the kitchen, revving up the mixer for a new batch to satisfy my fix. Someday, I will open my own bakery and make cookies for everyone in Metter!  But until then I’ll just fatten up my four boys (and myself.)

I’m not going to include a list of my favorite cookie recipes, because none of them are mine.  I will, however, share with you my favorite cookie book:

http://www.amazon.com/Betty-Crockers-Cookie-Book-Best-Loved/dp/0028626036

I actually intend on getting a new copy, because mine is literally falling apart.  The project will also include the tedious task of transferring all my notes and ratings.  I love to write in my cookbooks.  I star the recipe (unhappy face for really bad, one star, two stars, three stars, and three stars and a happy face for superbly scrumptious) and include the date I first made it.  I include if it was for a special event, like a birthday, and if I added or omitted anything or altered the cooking directions, etc. or just why it was bad.  My cookbooks look a lot like my Literature textbooks, where I often jot down teaching ideas, point out literary references or meanings, and argue with the authors. Most of the recipes in my Betty Crocker Cookie Cook Book have three stars and a happy face.  Cookies are just good, and hard to mess up (unless you put them in the oven and go chase after your 2-year-old who has just opened up strawberry jello packets all over the sofa and attempted to eat them.)

I also stand by my grandmother, master of all things cookie, that the best cookie recipe was invented by Nestle Tollhouse and is conveniently located on the back of the yellow bag.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Cookies, btw, are not part of the cooking cheap section of this blog, but the part that involves staying sane.  I will say that box cookies are usually expensive and/or hard and basically will never be as good as its homemade version.  Cookie dough in a tube is really only good for eating raw, as a good friend of mine and I actually did once.  The main thing in cookies that costs any kind of money is the additives.  So, in chocolate chip cookies, you are paying for the chocolate chips; in the peanut butter cookies, the peanut butter; and so forth.  The way I get around this is to stock up on chips when they are on sale, and then put them up in the freezer.

Most drop cookie recipes involve the same process, so once you get used to it, you are the master of cookies.  I like to throw some butter Crisco in with the butter.  This makes the cookies come out a bit softer.  I also enjoy the whole batter process.  The butter and sugar get to “cream,” which basically means you beat the crap out of them until they smooth together into perfection.  Then the eggs and vanilla go in and get beat well until the batter fluffs a bit.  Finally, you slowly add the flour and scrape it all down and mix again.  Who would ever want to use “place and bake” cookies?!  Even with the craziness of homework and poopy diapers… there is always time somewhere to make a batch of cookies from scratch.

A note on bowl licking… bowl licking is an essential part of cookie-making, and anyone who scares you with the uncooked egg thing is just mean. There is no more simple joy than licking that butter/sugar concoction that sticks to the beaters. When my boys are home, it is a sign of my overwhelming love that I hand over the beaters to them to enjoy. But, if I am alone, the pleasure is all mine!

The entire experience of cookie making (and eating) makes me happy.  Honestly, it is one of the simple pleasures in life.  Unfortunately, cookies don’t use a single thing from the garden, so they fail completely in that respect.  Sometimes, however, you have to look beyond the practicality of things.  Cookies are just an absolute good.

An Overview of our First Attempt at a Winter Garden

I’m going to switch focus this week from cooking to gardening, mostly because I haven’t cooked anything spectacular this week.  I was going to focus on cookies, but my cookie jar has remained empty for an unprecendented four days, as new baby Lily B has demanded much of my time.  (I believe it is three week growth spurt time.)  So, I’m putting a hold on the joys of brown sugar and butter as they combine sweetly in a mixer, and moving on to the possibly equal joys of watching something green come up in dirt.  Now, here you might disagree with me.  Dirt over butter!?  But, essentially both cooking and gardening involve creating something out of nothing.  While cooking gives you more immediate gratification (10 minutes to convert gooey dough to perfect melty chocolate chip cookies,) gardening does require a little more patience.  Both involve making messes, which is one of my specialties.  And both give you that unparalleled satisfaction of seeing your hard work turn into something useful and (most times) delicious.

Before this winter, I had never tried growing food from the ground.  I have, on several occasions, attempted an herb garden.  My first attempt involved a neat row of baby food jars on the window sill of our brick apartment building in Korea.  They died before they reached more than two inches tall (I partly blame my husband who forgot to water them while I was in Savannah for the summer.)  My second attempt involved digging up part of the backyard at our Fayetteville rental house, which resulted in mostly dirt and weeds and a few struggling basil plants.  Undeterred, I had a plan for our official “First Winter Garden.”  After much research about companion planting and soil conditions and planting times, I ordered fifteen packets of seeds from the Burpee Seed Company: broccoli, cabbage, mustard greens, collard greens, turnips, rutabagas, radishes, beets, carrots, green onion, parsnips, spinach, bib lettuce, romaine lettuce, and brussel sprouts.  I was also enticed by the collards, broccoli and cabbage seedlings at the corner nursery (they also specialize in used furniture, interestingly enough.)  So, I picked up a flat of those as well.  So, the time had come!  My loving husband took his shovel to the sod in a sunny spot in the backyard, and put in four back-breaking days of digging a 24′ x 16′  plot for our garden.

Tony digging up the garden

I then poked the holes for the seeds and planted them (2 seeds in each hole, thinned to 1 when they came up,) and I lovingly put in all the seedlings of broccoli, cabbage and collards.  I spaced them apart according to the package, watered them well, and stood back to watch them grow.

Heidi showing off the seeds

Regrettably, my husband and I are terrible slackers.  Between school and crazy boys and getting ready for our new arrival, I am ashamed to say we didn’t care for our little garden very well.  We started up a compost pile in the summer, but there wasn’t enough to really use for the garden.  We kept saying, “we need to get some compost from the hardware store,”  but we didn’t.  After thinning the young little plants, I didn’t weed them.  The soil was not amended in anyway, and the oak leaves and pecans fell all over the garden through the fall and winter.  Occasionally, every few days, I would waddle out to the garden and check on things.  We had an unusually wet November, December and January, so I didn’t water the garden more than once or twice.

BUT… AMAZINGLY… STUFF GREW!!

Radishes and Candy Canes

Ok, we didn’t really plant Candy Canes….

But, we did get a lot of green stuff:

Our garden growing

I really couldn’t believe it!  Two incompetent, neglectful, out-of-town-half-the-time, brown-thumb individuals made something grow.  As Dr. Ian Malcolm would say, “life found a way.”

So, now I can say to you – if we could do it, you can do it!  And, you probably will have better luck growing bigger, better veggies if you are attentive and loving to your garden.

As it is, we are having rutabagas and collards tonight, and I have the privilege of walking out and pulling them out of the dirt.  Here you must agree, the joy of dirt can be equal to the joy of butter!  Both wonderful means to a tasty end.  And I might mention that my rutabagas, after being cleaned of their dirt, will be sauteed generously with butter for our dinner.  As Olga Dontsova, my wonderful Russian friend would say, butter is divinity!

Go for the Big Meat

Hammy twice baked potatoes and turnips with butter

One of the best ways to save money is to go for the big meat.  I’m talking about the whole chicken and the whole ham.  The big meat is the best because it is super versatile and stretches out for a long time.  Our big purchase this week was a ham.  I love ham.  When Thanksgiving and Christmas come around, I always pick the ham over the turkey – that sugar-coated, spiral-sliced goodness wins me over every time.  It doesn’t have to be a holiday to enjoy ham, yet it is rarely part of a normal weekly menu.  Why?  Because it’s so big!  But, you shouldn’t fear the big meat.  A nice butt section ham, unsliced, is a cheap piece of meat.  Here’s how to handle it:

Night #1 – Whole ham slices, veggie, starch.

Take the big ham out of the plastic and plop it on a foil-lined pan.  Take your knife and score diagonally in a criss-cross pattern so you have little diamonds all over the surface of your ham.  For fun and flavor, poke whole cloves into the intersections of the criss-crosses.  Bake 325 degrees for 1 1/2 hour.   Cook up glaze:

2 tsp. orange rind

1 cup orange juice

1/2 packed brown sugar

4 tsp. cornstarch

1  1/2 tsp. dry mustard

on stove until thick and bubbly.  Brush over ham and bake 325 degrees for 30 min.

This is stolen, btw, from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book – one of the best basic cook books in the world.

You do have to slice the ham yourself, but basically this is the same sugary goodness that you get from the pre-packaged ham at Christmas, only a lot cheaper.  My personal favorite ham dinner is a variation of what you would have at your typical New Years’ greens and beans meal.  I highly recommend rice, greens and cornbread.  Rice is best served up with Granny B’s tomato relish.  Greens are best with pepper vinegar.  Cornbread is best with honey.  If you have time, you can cook up a pot of black-eyed peas or Red beans, and you’ve got the best dinner in the world.  So… you have time, it’s Sunday dinner or something – so this is the first ham night.  It feels just like Christmas!  And really, not that expensive!

Lunches for a week:

Monday is here, and you don’t feel like using ham for leftover dinners.  Solution is – you have lunches for a week.  You have the always good ham sandwich.  You have Ham cut up on top of a salad.  You have Ham and potato hash.  You don’t have to creative at all.  You can be a pig and pick ham off the bone, straight out of the fridge.   But, if you do want leftovers for dinner….

Night #2 – Hammy Twice Baked Potatoes, veggie

Hammy Twice Baked Potatoes

4 potatoes

1 cup shredded cheese

1/4 cup cream cheese or sour cream

2 Tbl. fresh parsley

2 Tbl. green onion or chives

3/4 cup chopped ham

salt and pepper to taste

Bake potatoes in foil at 400 degrees for 1-2 hours until soft.  Cut potatoes in half lengthwise.  Scoop out about half of the insides into a bowl.  Add remaining ingredients and mix.  Scoop back into potato skins.  Bake additional 20-30 min at 350 degrees.

Night #3 – Ham Casserole

Ham Casserole

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 Tbl. butter

1 cup ham, chopped

2-3 cups elbow macaroni or other small pasta, cooked

1 cup swiss or mozzerella cheese, shredded

1 egg

1 can cream of mushroom soup (or equivilent in basic white sauce)

1 cup frozen peas, cooked

hot sauce, to taste

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup bread crumbs + 2 Tbl. melted butter, to top

Saute onion and garlic in butter until soft.  Add to remaining ingredients, except bread crumbs.  Turn into buttered casserole dish.  Top with bread crumbs and butter.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min.

Basic White Sauce

1 Tbl. butter

1 Tbl. flour

1/2 cup milk

Combine butter and flour in small saucepan over medium heat.  Add milk all at once.  Stir or whisk until incorporated.  Cook until thick and bubbly.

Night #4 – Ham Soup

My favorite ham soup is actually a corn and ham chowder from Justin Wilson – definitely worth looking up.  But, this is a basic ham soup recipe you can adapt.

Basic Ham Soup

1 ham bone with some remaining meat

4 cups water

1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup butter

1 onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

Veggies (corn, green pepper, greens, spaghetti squash, etc.)

bay leaf

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

hot sauce, to taste

salt and pepper to taste

Cut remaining meat off ham bone, reserve.  Add bone to water and bring to boil.  Simmer for 1-2 hours.  Make a roux out of the flour and butter.  Add onions and garlic and saute until onions are soft.  Add to Ham stock.  Add veggies and seasonings.  Simmer another hour or so.  The longer it sits, the nicer it gets.

I am a big believer in using what you have laying around.  With that in mind, play around with this soup and add what you have. You can also throw in some beans or a starch like rice or pasta.  White wine also makes soup nice.  Soups, like casseroles, are very forgiving, and you can take them in many different directions.  And, they are a great way to clean out the fridge.

Buying the whole ham or the whole chicken is such an economical way to go.  So, don’t be intimidated.  Go for the big meat!

Pancakes without a mix

Tahini and Flaxseed Pancakes

There is no good reason to keep pancake mix around the house.   Cake mix, however, is good for the two reasons pancake mix is bad.  Cake mix is cheap (generally one of the most popular sales items in the grocery store) and you never have to worry about running out of the mix, because you use it once.  Pancake mix, on the other hand, is most infuriating to deal with when you want to make a batch and thought you had enough in the box – yet don’t!  And don’t get me started on those plastic containers you shake.  Like “place and bake” cookies they are just the height of laziness, not to mention wasteful!  The easy solution to this problem is making pancakes out of staples you probably have in the cabinet anyway.  You don’t have another box taking up space in the pantry.  You don’t have to deal with further processed food.  You know what is going into your pancake.  And, pancakes is one of the easiest, most-adaptable, quickest recipes there is!  Amazingly, the mix really doesn’t save you all that much time.

Here’s the basic recipe (I know the thing by heart, I make it so much):

Basic Pancake Recipe

1 cup flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tbl. sugar

2 Tbl. oil

1 cup milk

1 egg

Mix dry ingredients.  Add wet ingredients.  Whisk until smooth.  Pour into hot oiled pan.   Cook 1-2 min. on medium heat until bubbles form and pop.  Flip and cook for another min.   Serves 2-4.

This basic recipe is wonderful all on it’s own.  I make it often with scrambled eggs.  But, pancakes are a wonderful food that, after mastering the basic recipe, can be served in many ways for all three meals or as snacks.

Some basic variations that I love (Just add to basic recipe.  You might need to adjust the milk ratio as needed to make a good smooth batter):

• 1/4 cup baked, mashed sweet potato.
• 2 Tbl. peanut butter
• thinly sliced banana and chocolate chips (add to top before flipping)
• 1/4 cup grated zucchini (squeeze as much water out as you can before adding)
• 1/4 cup mashed chickpeas

By changing the recipe, you can make pancakes for lunch or dinner.  I serve up sweet potato pancakes often with green beans.  I drizzle some honey on them and the kids love them.  I flirted briefly with vegetarianism, and while doing so found so many good recipes for pan-fried patties involving beans and grains.  This concept is basically a glorified pancake.  When you think about it, corn fritters are just glorified pancakes as well.

Here’s my basic corn fritter recipe:

Basic Corn Fritters

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup corn meal

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/4 cup grated onion (if you wish)

1/2 – 1 cup water

Mix dry ingredients.  Mix in onion.  Slowly add water until desired consistancy.  More water will create thinner corn fritters which require less cook time.  Thick fritters will be cakier inside when fried and take longer to cook.  Drop by the spoonful (or pour for thin fritters) into 1/4 inch hot oil.  Fry for 1-2 min.  Flip and fry on the other side 1 min.  Serves 8.

Pancakes are possibly my favorite food in the whole world, although corn fritters feature high on my list.  They are both so easy to make, and you really feel like a master when you can churn out beautiful fluffy pancakes anywhere anytime.  I like to use a cast iron skillet for them, because it cooks so beautifully and because it’s always on my stove waiting for  me to use it.  It probably would be easier to flip pancakes on a cast iron griddle, which I actually have.  But, I have a sentimental attachment to my 10 inch skillet.  It just makes all my food taste so lovely.

The Versatile Ramen Noodle

Ramen as high cuisine

So, I have decided to substitute playing mindless online games like Alchemy and Bejeweled for blogging!  Actually, I’m copying my husband as well, and possibly “Julie and Julia,” which we watched and immediately went out and bought the Julia Child cookbook (without intentions of blogging, but simply cooking good French cuisine.)  What’s more fun to write about than cooking though?  Possibly gardening, which I also intend to address.  Mainly, I want to write about living cheaply, eating stuff from my backyard, and trying to do it all while chasing around a houseful of kids.

I will get into the lovely details of our first attempt at backyard gardening, but today I want to talk about that lovely invention from Asia:  The Ramen noodle.

Most people relegate the Ramen noodle to the college apartment kitchen, and this fact is just unfair.  The Ramen noodle is so much more.  Living in Korea (which I will probably reference often,) I was introduced to the wonderful world of the cheesy Ramen.  The cheapest dish sold in the corner snack bar or take out restaurant, cheesy Ramen consists of the famous noodles, spiced up and covered in processed cheese.  Oh yeah baby!  After wiping your nose from the chili pepper paste, you think – what else besides cheese can I put in Ramen noodles!?  The choices are endless!

1. Cheese is always a good ingredient.  Cheese takes Ramen noodles to the next level, and should always be considered when making a Ramen noodle meal.  The Koreans have this very right.  You can get hot Korean Ramen packs at your Asian grocery store, or just get regular Ramen and pour on the hot chili paste.  The Korean style packs sometimes have little treats in them too, like dried veggie packets, mmmmmm….    On another note, do not limit yourself to just yellow processed cheese.  Upgrade to Swiss or Mozzerella, and you really got something good!

2. Think vegetables.  After cheese, my second favorite ingredient to add is whatever veggies happen to be in the fridge.  Today for lunch, I tried pan fried turnips, onions and spinach in butter.  Cast iron, btw, makes everything taste better – another day, another discussion.  Turnips and spinach you say!  Have you lost your mind?! …………. NO!  I have not!  Don’t be intimidated by vegetables – throw in what you have.  Lunch is a good time for experimentation in my opinion.  Actually, any time is a good time for experimentation – but lunch is less committal, especially if you are just cooking for yourself and possibly a toddler or an open-minded husband.

3. Bacon.  Bacon is just good anyway, but frying up and then crumbling bacon into Ramen is very good.  This, btw, is where you stereotype me as a typical Southern idiot who cares nothing for her arteries, but do not be so quick to judge!  I believe a well-rounded diet should include some good old-fashioned fat, which is much better for you than processed crap (exceptions include Cheese Ramen Korean style with processed cheese.)

4. Water ratio changes everything.  Do you like Ramen soup or do you like it dry?  When I taught English in Korea, kids would come with packets of Ramen, which they crushed and ate just like that.  I always thought it was fairly gross, but to each his own.   One of the best packets to get is Creamy Chicken, which requires some decent amount of water to make it good and creamy.  This pairs well with a white cheese and a green, leafy veggie.

5. Ramen + leftover meat.  Ramen works great with leftover roasted chicken, cut up pork chops, etc. on top. Don’t forget to add your veggies and cheese, if you wish.

Think of Ramen as a quick, cheap pasta base.  You can use the packet of seasoning, but you don’t have to.  You can invent your own sauce, or use something from last night’s dinner.  Ramen is a perfect lunch when you have kids who want something NOW, or you forgot that it was 12:00 p.m. but your tummy did not.  While by itself, Ramen seems a pitiful portion for lunch, full of carbs and nothing else; spiced up it is something else entirely.