I remember one time when I was a young mother and broke. One week the only meat we had in The House was a large bulk pack of hot dogs, so I got creative that week and made hot dog fried rice, hot dog teriyaki and hot dog tempura. I also used finely chopped hot dogs as the meat in spaghetti sauce. That was an interesting week. Have you ever had to improvise meals when you were in a tight spot financially? What kind of meals did you come up with and what did you use?
Potatoes can come in handy when you're in a tight spot. You can bake them, make chips, boil, mash them up and make some gooey potato soup. The options are simply limitless. I wouldn't say I got creative, I cooked potatoes in different ways for more than 5 days and all along I enjoyed the meals even though all of them were made from potatoes.
[video=youtube;V3CgeJED9SU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3CgeJED9SU[/video] Certainly wasn't creative by any stetch of the imagination, but since I've been rather down on my luck lately, I've had to...as they say, make do with what I have if you understand me? And it happened that I had a lot of pasta, since I buy it in bulk. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything to make a decent meal out of, or even some sauce for the pasta. So, I had to make do by just eating pasta, and using HP bbq sauce as my 'sauce'. I would not recommend.
Here is my favorite Ramen concoction: Shredded Pork Ramen 3 pounds of pork neck bone one bunch of green onions one large ginger root, chopped 12 cloves garlic, mashed 16 cups water 3 bunches buckwheat noodles 1/8 cup bean sprouts, cleaned 1 egg 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablespoon sesame oil 1 tablespoon white wine salt to taste 1) Rub salt on pork bones and let bones sit overnight in the fridge. 2) Pour 8 cups of water in pot with ginger root, garlic, and salted pork bones and boil over high heat. When boil, skim the fat and other floating scums. 3) When all the fat and scrums are skimmed, reduce heat to low heat, cover pot and simmer mixture for about two hours. When broth is done, let broth and pork completely cool in pot. Strain and save pork bone and get as much meat from the pork bone as possible. Set meat aside as one of the toppings later. 4) Boil 4 cups of water over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium, salt water and cook buckwheat noodles until noodles are al dente. Set noodle aside. 5) Boil the rest of of water in another pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and hard-boil egg for about 5 minutes. Peel the egg shell and cut egg in half. Set aside. 6) Using the same pot for the noodles, boil water over medium and blanch bean sprouts for about 5 minutes. Set aside. 7) Boil strained broth over high heat. Skim more fat or scums out if necessary. Add salt, soy sauce, sesame oil, and white wine. Let broth simmer until it is ready for plating. 8) Chop green onion nicely. Set aside. 9) Plate buckwheat noodle in a bowl. Pour simmering broth until noodles are covered. Place pork pieces, green onions, bean sprouts and egg nicely on top of noodle. Serve when ready.
I am not a creative person in general so I don't make many interesting meals regardless of what is in my kitchen. Some weeks I do try to cut back on grocery spending to make up for overspending in other areas so I will try to get by with what I have or only buying a few items. I have discovered that mac and cheese is not only cheap--even the organic kind--but really versatile. You can mix broccoli or tomatoes in with it, shred some chicken, or dd some taco seasoning and meat and have a taco type thing. I'm sure there are many other things I could do but the above are what I do with it.
