Gourmett

On Mondays, George and I have asynchronous schedules, so we decided it would be the weekly "fend-for-yourself" day. I'm usually short on time, so I turn to our shelf of ramen for a meal. But I can't convince myself to eat only ramen. I promised myself I would explore different culinary opportunities, so I've been trying to find new ways to treat old recipes.

There's an excellent blog called the "Official Ramen Homepage" where new recipes with ramen are posted regularly. I would seem to be a prime member of the target audience, so it's a step up from what I know. It, however, is also somewhat of a slap that I didn't have the right ingredients for even a ramen recipe and had to substitute lemon juice for lime juice in last week's Lime and Pepper Beef Noodles. But they were still better than regular ramen.

This week, I tried the Easy Peanut Sauce Ramen, a wonderful gift with the simplicity of ramen and the great taste of peanut butter. It came out fairly well and would recommend it, though I'm not quite sure about the measurements on it, as mine came out very peanut-buttery and not so salty (though the comments have the opposite complaint). I would offer pictures, but I feel that would deter you from trying it as it looks far worse than it tastes.

Ramen, however, isn't the most filling meal, so I supplemented it with another snack right now. We seem to almost eat our bread every week, but some ends up in the fridge after a week. As such, I've eaten a lot of grilled cheese sandwichs here. But like ramen, I want to experiment, so today, I found a recipe for an onion-cheese sandwich. We happen to have a small jar of dijon mustard, so I tried that as well. The additions were barely noticeable, but nice. Here's a picture, though it looks just like regular grilled cheese.


There's not always enough time or supplies or effort to create a great meal, but even in a kitchen as bare as ours, one can find new foods, new combinations. In the end, I just ate ramen and a grilled cheese sandwich (with a kraft single, not even real cheese) this evening, but it's a little more. Not quite gourmet, but maybe gourmett.