Oriental Fried Ramen-Starving Student’s Survival

My granddaughter calls Oriental Fried Ramen Starving Student’s Survival.  That is because this recipe can feed four people for less than $2.00, and she is a starving student in California.  It is a "go-to" recipe for her.

I like to have fried rice as a side dish when I make something Oriental.   Since hubby doesn’t really care for rice, I often make this dish instead.  Use your favorite ramen noodle flavor in this.

Like all recipes for fried rice, you can use whatever veggies that you want in this dish or whatever you happen to have in the fridge.  I rarely make this exactly the same way twice in a row.  I do almost always use onion and red pepper.  This particular time I used carrots and snow peas.  I also sometimes add chopped nuts.

Although I include eggs when I make this, they can be left out, and almost any kind of cooked meat (even bacon) can be used to make it more of a main dish.

The recipe is loosely based on a recipe I found at  - http://busycooks.About.com a number of years ago.

Oriental Fried Ramen
2 pkgs. Ramen noodles, flavor of choice
3 c. boiling water
1 T. vegetable oil
1 t. sesame oil (optional)
1/2 c. chopped onion (regular or green)
1/2 c. chopped red pepper
1/2 c. carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch matchsticks
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 c. frozen peas (or chopped snow peas or sugar snap peas)
2 T. soy sauce
2 eggs, beaten
1 to 2 c. chopped cooked meat or poultry

Break ramen noodles into six or eight pieces and place in a medium mixing bowl.  Sprinkle with the contents of the seasoning packets.  Pour boiling water over noodles and let set while preparing rest of ingredients.  Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in a medium skillet.  Add onion, red pepper, carrots and garlic.  Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until tender-crisp, about 7 minutes.  Drain noodles well and add to skillet.  Add soy sauce and mix until well blended.  Cook and stir noodles 1 or 2 minutes.  Push noodles to the side of the skillet and pour eggs into the center.  Cook eggs, scrambling and cutting into small pieces as the eggs cook.  Mix eggs with noodles.  Add meat or poultry if using and heat through.  Serve as a side or main dish as desired.  Makes 4 servings.

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Time to Sparkle

Hawaiian-Style Vegetables-Improv Cooking Challenge

Today is the day to post our recipes for this month’s Improv Cooking Challenge hosted by Kristen over at Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker.  (Note, Kristen’s is in the process of changing servers so I will be back with a link as soon as I know the blog is back up.)

The ingredients Kristen chose this month were peas and carrots, a pretty common combination.  I chose to go a somewhat traditional route with these, but used snow peas in my recipe.

Many, many years ago Birdseye made a frozen vegetable and pineapple combination called Hawaiian Vegetables.  It had carrots, green peppers, onions, water chestnuts and pineapple with little cubes of frozen sauce that melted and glazed the vegetables as they cooked.  Although I don’t really like green peppers, I did love this particular dish.

I decided this was a good time to try to replicate that recipe.  The only brand I can find that makes 8-oz. cans of pineapple tidbits is Dole.  Pineapple chunks may be used, but they will need to be quartered.  They carrots need to be very thinly sliced, no thicker than the snow peas.  I like to slice them on the diagonal.  Since I didn't use them, I have listed the water chestnuts as optional.

Hawaiian-Style Vegetables
1 can (8 oz.) pineapple tidbits in their own juice
1 T. butter
2 t. brown sugar
1 c. very thinly sliced carrots
1/2 c. finely chopped onion
1 c. snow peas
1/2 to 3/4 c. very thinly sliced red pepper (I used about 1/4 of a very large pepper)
1/8 t. salt
1/3 c. thinly sliced canned water chestnuts
1 T. cornstarch
1/3 c. water

Drain pineapple, reserving juice (there should be about 1/3 c.)  Melt butter in a 1 1/2-qt. saucepan and add brown sugar.  Stir in carrots, onion,  and snow peas.  Cook, uncovered, over medium heat 4 minutes, stirring often.  Add red pepper, pineapple juice and salt.  Cover and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often.  Add reserved pineapple chunks and water chestnuts, if using.  Cook about 1 minutes longer until vegetables are not quite as tender as you like.  Add cornstarch to water and mix well.  Add to vegetable mixture, stirring constantly.  Cook over medium heat until sauce is clear, thickened, and boiling.  Remove from heat, turn into a serving bowl and serve immediately.  Makes 4 servings.