I had a number of plans involving the dawning of spring and it's attendant foods: fresh asperagus and peas; bitter greens which help to clean out all the salt that, historically, winter foods were preserved with; light and delicate shoots and sweet baby vegetables just begging to be eaten as is. Instead, I have more snow. So, since I can't (as yet) avail myself of the above mentioned, I'm going to stick with comfort food: ramen noodles!!
Growing up my mum was a weird mix of fresh and packaged foods. Cakes and pasta sauces were always made from scratch, and we always got brown bread that was not presliced, but she would keep the pantry stocked with CheeseWhiz, Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles. I never liked CheeseWhiz, and I positively hated Kraft Dinner, but Mr. Noodles were pretty handy to have around! Even now, I have a number of recipes that call for prepackaged ramen noodles which, until recently, made them difficult to make. Yes, you can substitute rice noodles, but those are a little more delicate that a typical ramen, so you can imagine my joy when I discovered King Soba made a variety of different kinds!
Unfortunately, my neighbourhood favourite shop didn't have any regular brown rice ramen, but as you have a numbr of options to choose from, it wasn't really a problem. You have several "cakes" of thedried noodles in the larger grey pack (4, if memory serves) while the little red packed (lower, right corner) is a single serving.
I actually had this for breakfast. Super (pardon the pun) simple, actually. Boil 2 cups of water, then add the noodles. Allow them to cook just until they start to break up, then add the seasoning packet (this was a chilli miso flavour, though it wasn't spicy in the least) and I also added a beaten egg and about a cup of spinach. Once the spinach is wilted, the egg will have cooked,so serve and enjoy!
So while a hot bowl of soup really wasn't what I had in mind now that we are officially into spring, it was tasty enough that I don't mind in the least!
Hooray for Ramyan! I first learned about them in S. Korea. They are also good if you boil them with Kimchi, bacon, a slice of processed cheese and seseme oil. This is the bastardized version the Ajumas created for the U.S. Army boys to eat after stumbling out of the bars, oddly, it is my comfort food too :) Love you Baby Cousin :)
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