Gourmet Top Ramen: Japan Would Be Proud.

          This week, the assignment given to us was something I actually do quite often: create a "gourmet" dish consisting of ramen noodles. We were given a minimum of $7 we could use to create this dish, and we were able to use food items that have been sitting in our fridges. I started off my meal by going to Winco, of course, to pick up a few things that I did not have. The first thing I threw in my cart were two packages of Sapporo Ichiban ramen noodles. Each package was 78 cents and the ramen is a tad better than the basic Maruchan. Next I picked up a bottle of Sriracha for $2.68, since my bottle was nearly done, and my roommate, along with myself, eats it with many meals. The rest of the materials I needed for this meal were in my fridge, such as vegetables from my garden and a couple different sauces I have acquired since summer. After gathering everything together onto, and around, my very tiny cutting board, I began to start the process.


  I started with slicing the vegetables, of course, and the aroma was wonderful. The carrots, sweet onions, and bell peppers were from my garden in Bonners, and they all were as fresh as one could get. While doing this, I thawed some Winco cheap, corn-fed pork cuts I had frozen in the freezer, and cut them into small chunks after they had sat in the hot pork water for a while. I heated up two pans on my range top, containing vegetable oil for the frying, and quickly chopped my veggies. I threw them in, along with the pork in another pan, and began to fry. A pot, water boiling, contained the ramen until it went from boulder hard to kitten soft in only 3 minutes. Added to the vegetables was a mighty mixture of Sriracha, Soy Sauce, and some szechuan, while the pork cooked in its own juices. Everything is cooked on its own now? Might as well toss it all together.
          In the end, it smelled and looked wonderful. My food testers were what worried me. Well, one of them. My roommate had gotten back this semester from spending a year in Japan, going to school and shifting all his thoughts towards how much better that country is than ours. So here I am, cooking Asian style noodles to my best friend who had recently become a man of everything Japanese. The other taster was my girlfriend, but her opinion nearly never matters because she believes everything I cook is great. I served the meal up on large plates, and brought them out to the table in our living room. We sat around it, ate, and chatted. The first thing to be said about it was that it was spicy, from both of them. Well, of course, I put enough Sriracha in there to set a baby on fire. Also, I really wanted to hit a hot and spicy type of flavor, while having the vegetables bring out their own flavors to compliment it. The spice was nice, but the peppers still popped, the carrots still tasted straight out of the garden, and the onions were so sweet, that the spice did not overpower the dish. Next, my roommate gives me props for making a good noodle dish from cheap ramen noodles rather than something like a high quality udon noodle. All in all, I received good feedback, all three of us finished the dish in one sitting, and we complimented the meal with the fine champagne of beer. I do meals like this quite often, and after this assignment, I will continue to. Will you? Is this how you will make your Top Ramen meals in the future?

No Clever Title: The Journey of Two Peppers

          I went home after receiving this assignment. I would be able to eat how I wanted for a week at least, and I had all the fixings for it in my fridge already. Bell peppers from my parent's garden have been used in nearly all of my meals for the past two weeks, and I had some bell peppers from Winco that my roommate had bought on Thursday. Today, September 17th of the year 2012, I decided to take one of each finally, slice two chunks off both, feed them to my roommate in a blind taste test, and vice versa.

          

          Before this all happened, I took a look at the two specimens I had in front of me. There were no stickers on the Winco pepper, and of course, none on the one straight from the garden. Within this picture, the slender pepper on the left was the natural vegetable while the fat, oddly colored and hard plump pepper on the right was straight from the produce aisle. I decided to cut the garden pepper first, and the knife collapsed it a bit, and when it finally ripped through, a little juice had sprayed and a distinct pepper smell filled the air. When pushing the knife through the Winco pepper, a lot of juice covered the cutting board, and no smell was to be found. As you can see with the picture below, with the pepper slices in the same order as their parents, the thickness difference was huge. And later, I found out why. 

         I brought the strips out to my living room, where my roommate was sitting, doing his homework, and not expecting me to feed him some vegetables. With a beanie over his eyes, the first bite was taken of the garden fresh pepper. All he said was that it had a "good taste, was crisp, and the taste lingered nicely." Next bite was of the Winco pepper, and he said that it "tasted like water." He guessed which was which, and mentioned that there was "no competition." 

          Next, it was my turn to wear the beanie. The first strip I ate was exactly how my roommate describe the Winco one. I'm not one who particularly likes to eat his water, and this pepper had nothing going for it other than a decent crunch. I knew from the start this was the store bought, but decided to see what the other one was like. And as I would have thought, it had actual flavor to it. It was much better, but in the end, I ended up just eating the rest of both as a snack.

          Was it hard at all to tell the difference? No. Nope. No (this was the Spanish no, it's different, give me a break.) Normally, I wouldn't pay too much attention towards the vegetables I was eating, whether dipped in some ranch, grilled, or baked. It has always been deeply rooted in my mind that something out of the garden will always be better, and it still holds true. It seems so far that all in the group so far prefers the garden/ farmer's market version of their food of choice, but how many of you will still eat the "fresh" veggies out of the produce aisles of Walmart or Winco? I know I will.

          

          

A Couple Days of No Corn (Or how I became a Saturday market Vegan for a week)

          I eat meat. And when I say that, I mean quite often. Nearly every night, my roommate and I are usually grilling some sort of pork chop, broiling some sort of steak, or cutting up chicken for some sort of stir fry. When I received this assignment, I didn't know what I was going to do with myself. Eating my glorious corn-fed animals was out of the picture, and I couldn't just heat up some Chef Boyardee and call it good. I had to find some alternative, and instead of heading over to the Co-op or Huckleberry's, I ended up trying to find something that wouldn't (possibly) break my bank.

          As I pondered where to search first, sitting upon my comfy, worn leather recliner, a bottle of beer to my side, my phone rang. On the other end was a good buddy of mine, asking if I wanted to come help him harvest his plot at the Community Garden. This was perfect: harvest his plot, acquire part of his plot. I agreed, and within ten minutes, I was getting out of the car at the garden, and pulling vegetables. The tomatoes were huge. The onions were enormous. I pulled enough carrots and squash to feed a small village. We left after harvesting half of the plot, and the backseat of his Accord was stacked with organic, non-treated vegetables. I was able to take however many items that I could fit in my two arms and carry up the stairs to my humble abode. I know this defeats the purpose of the assignment, with the going out and buying everything without corn products in it, but 1) it was free food and 2) these onions were not eating corn mush from their own trough. But I also see how this, and my whole week diet, are dependent on the time of year. For example, this style of Corn-Free eating is quite hard during winter, unless I get my veggies from some super market where who knows what the fertilizer was.

                 Saturday came around, and my buddy called me yet again, asking if I wanted to head to the Saturday Market downtown. Well of course I did, then I could actually find out how much my week of organic Vegan eating could cost me. The stands were full of fresh veggies and fruits; boxes overflowing with them. Then I found the pepper stands, and I was in my zone. My first purchase were a pound of Jalapeno's ($3.00) from this nice Elderly woman who even let me have a taste of a raw one before I gave her my money. Delicious. I moved on, walking from tent to tent, and found some Heirloom Sweet Onions laid out, looking gigantic. Grabbed a bundle of them ($3.75) and left. Next, I found some Mellow Star peppers, bought a pound of them ($3.50) and got another sample. And then I found myself a head of lettuce even ($4.00) I never really thought about shopping at this market, but I have realized how great it is. 

          Vegetables are great to have and all, but I like myself a fair share of candy, and needed something for my sweet tooth. The fruit at this market was magnificent. Peaches bigger than my fist ($2.00), apples of all shades ($3.00) and some pineapple($5.00) that I definitely was not grown from around here. Well, I bought all three, but I am not eating the pineapple this week. I don't know what mysteries hide within that thing.

          With my hands full of plastic bags, I walked back home, and laid everything out. Every fruit, every veggie looked damn good. But with each thing I looked at, a steak I had frozen in my freezer would have made it a lot better. But it is now Monday, Day 5 of this week long diet, and I honestly have been eating pretty well. Altogether, I spent $24.25 for the week out of my pocket, and still have enough food for another week and a half. I personally do not eat breakfast, but I have had a peach or an apple, and a salad for nearly every lunch, and have sauteed onions together with a variety of peppers for dinner every night. The problem with that is that I have been using seasonings that may or may not contain some sort of Corn-based product. Many of them have homemade labels on them, since they end up getting removed for God knows why. Oh well, I have not used too much. I should have went out to the Co-op or somewhere to pick up some other stuff, but well, it has been interesting to try out this Vegetarian sort of lifestyle. I enjoy it, but I know within a couple of days, I will be tearing open those Ziploc bags I have stocked in my freezer, thawing out some precious Winco pork and eating a ham steak full of corn. How about you? Will you go back to normal, or stay away from these corn products?