Ramen Week Days Two and Three: Beef Stir Fry and a Midnight Snack

Apparently, making commitments and time to cook every day will not prevent life from keeping you from blogging about it. So, you lucky people get two recipes in one post!

A quick reminder about the Rules of Ramen Week:

1. Every day for one week, I must have at least one ramen based meal. 
2. I refuse to use flavor packs 
3. The meal must be healthy
4. It must cost under $5.00 per serving

No real noodles were harmed in the making of these meals

The second day'smeal was a beef and veggie ramen stir fry:

Price for four meals:

• Beef (I got it on sale and it was in my freezer): ~$3.00
• Six Baby Carrots (assuming 50 to a bag): $0.20
• Half bag of Snap Peas: $2.00
• One onion: $0.80
• One green pepper: $0.85
• Three packages Ramen: $0.54

Price per serving: $1.84

Alright, this may not be the healthiest thing I have ever cooked, but it was cheap, delicious and filling.

If you have never made stir fry before this wikipedia article provides some useful guidance.

This does involve a good deal of prep work. Before you even pull out your pan, cut your beef into bite sized portions and breifly marinade in teryaki sauce (or worchester sauce with a drop of tobasco will work beautifuly if you have no teryaki) and dice your onion and pepper, slice your carrots and boil your Ramen. You will also want to prepare a end sauce. Mine consisted of a mix of teryaki and oyster sauces but any thick sauce will do.

Take out your wok (or, if you don't have one a frying pan will work just fine) and dress it with sesame oil. Add whichever spices you prefer in your stir fry (I use garlic and ginger with just a hint of ground mustard seed). When the pan is hot enough, throw in your beef and sear it.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

When the beef is cooked through, remove it to another plate and throw in your vegetables with a little more sesame oil.  Cook them on high until the vegetables have softened.

So healthy, right?

 As soon as the veggies are cooked throw in your sauce and the ramen and beef and mix together.

Maybe not...

 Enjoy piping hot.

For day three, I made a evening snack out of Ramen noodles and two eggs.

For two snacks:

• One Ramen Pack: $0.18
• Two eggs: $0.33

Price per serving: $0.26

This is a really simple snack that is so easy to make. 

Take your ramen before it is cooked and crush it into tiny pieces.

Apparently a bag of crushed ramen looks just like a while bag of ramen

Cook it as normal. While the water is boiling, take two eggs and beat them with basil and garlic and onion powders and salt and pepper.

Protein! 

When the ramen is just shy of being cooked, drain it and deposit it directly into a pan with a little butter over medium heat. Add in eggs and stir until the eggs are completely cooked.

Eat immediately

Up next: Ramen and Cheese