Made up Ramen #1

Shut up about last week. I simply forgot. So here's what I cooked on Monday, but first a catch up.

I've been mostly helping my mother with a horse show, and haning out with my friend Chel. On Saturday Chel and I went to the Pagan Pride festival in Murray Park. It was our second year going and while we had fun, we both agree they where low on real vendors this year. Everyone seemed to push for giving readings (tarot cards and runes) to others.

Later that night I went out and saw Resident Evil: Afterlife. It was okay and the only thing I wish the movie really put more effort into the siblinghood of Chris and Claire, since there was next to none.

Dinner on Monday was a ramen dish that I pretty much made up on the spot. Before daddy left for work, I asked if he had any requests on what I should cook this week for the dinners. He asked for a pork noodle dish. I chose to use ramen noodles since I know pork would go better with those than the udon I have hiding.

Here's a fact about ramen noodles. It's not a noodle dish that originates from Japan. Ramen noodles are from China. The Japanese really like their ramen and they eat it (as far as I can tell) more than the Chinese do.

In many bigger Prefectures/cities in Japan you can find whole streets dedicated to cooking ramen dishes. Tokyo unquestionably has the most in the country. There are also a few ramen centered eatteries here in the sates, you just need to know how to look for them. I suggest yellowpages or Dex.

Ramen is also cooked differently in the regions of Japan. Sapporo, for example, likes to put miso in their ramen dishes. While Tokyo you'll find more dishes that are onpar with soba dishes.

Onto my cooking! Our trip to Wally World to get what we needed was um... interesting. First off their leek selection was very EW! I took the two leeks that I could find that looked the best. The rest where slimey and looked like they'd been dragged down a rough road. Ew.

The other funny thing that happened was during checkout. The cashier looked at my leeks and said, "What the heck are those?!" She had never seen leeks before! I told her they where like onions and I used them when cooking Asian food, she was all "Oh...okay."

Then we got home and after putting away all the other groceries, I started on dinner. After giging the leeks the scrubbing of their lives, I sliced them.

Next I took the can on bamboo shoots and the can of water chestnuts, opened them and drained the liquid. Once the liquid was out of the cans I put the bamboo shoots and water chestnuts on a plate with a paper towel under them, to soak up any leftover liquid.

Next was the pork. I cut it into bite size pieces and only used to slabs (for lack of better turm).

I used two blocks of ramen noodles, throw away the packets, I don't use them when cooking like this. Add 2 - 3 cups of water to your pot of choice and let it come to a boil. As it heats up put in 1/4 teaspoon dashi powder, 1 tablespoon mirin, 1 tablespoon soy sauce, and 1/2 teaspoon white miso. Once it boils them add the blocks of ramen noodles. After the noodles are loose enough that you can stir them away from each other (that make sense?) add the veggies and the meat.

Bring the heat down to a mideum-high and let everything keep cooking until both the meat and veggies are done. You can serve with other foods too, I didn't since it was just dad and I at the time.

^_^ Let me know what you think if you ever try it.

Where the hell have I been?

Busy. That’s where. A lot has happened since my last post.

Firstly, one of my laptops named Viking decided it was time to die a very odd epic death. See he had been acting slower than usual and I did all the normal scans for infections, took off the useless stuff, cleaned out my compressed files. That didn’t work so I asked my dad to give me the format and reinstall disk. Here’s where it gets odd. The format and reinstall didn’t work. We tried it like ten times with two different disk and the computer wouldn’t do it. It read the disk, it just didn’t come back up naked (for lack of better term) like it’s supposed to.

Viking is now in my closet on top of a box. There’s a brand new computer on my desk named Boo. And Boo is full of all kinds of awesome. I’ve had him a little over a month now and love it.
Secondly, I’ve been making lists and itineraries for the trip to Walt Disney World the first part of November. The only one in my immediate family doing so I might add! Sheesh. Mom screws around on facebook and dad does who knows what on his computer. At least I try to be productive.

Lastly, um we had a car get murdered this month. Dad was on his way to work last week when he got hit on the passenger driver side of my 2001 Taurus by a gravel truck. Dad’s fine! He just had minor whiplash (also injured his pride) and the truck driver was fine too, just glad dad wasn’t hurt. Mom was at work and I was off in dream land when this happened, so when dad called me he woke me up… and since it was just after 12-noon I needed to get up, but still! Mom got him and we were told two days later that my car was dead.

Down to one car for those two days was interesting. I called into Macy*s ‘cause we were still running around doing things, mom wanted to go car shopping after everything with the insurance was completely done, and there was no way in hell I was going into work by that hour then having them rush back to get me. No. Just no.

I haven’t been car shopping with my parents in years. I don’t think I’ve been there when they bought a car, I’ve been in several with them. Dad wanted a brand new car since he’s never had one before, mom was cool with that so was I. He asked me if I had any preferences on cars to which I responded “Um, an automatic with oh-shit handles.” I TRIED to drive a stick a few years ago, mom’s Passat is a stick and I ended up flooding the engine. …yeah I fail. The Taurus had no handles on the roof, just the hooks for hangers, which is bad when making sharp turns or slamming on the breaks should you be my passenger.

Anyways, we ended up getting a 2010 Honda Civic. I LOVE THIS CAR! Having a CD player is nice after just listening to tapes me whole driving life… only thing is all my audio books are on tapes…

This is what my last two months have been filled with and why I wasn’t blogging.
There will be a food blog update with real food either later tonight or sometime tomorrow. It will include pictures and my takes on some snacks I bought today at the Sage Market.