Transforming Top Ramen

This week's challenge: create a gourmet meal with $7 or less using Top Ramen as the main ingredient. Here's the breakdown:

The Ingredients

Inspiration cuisine/culture: Asian

Attempted taste profiles: salty and sweet

Ingredients to buy: Oriental Top Ramen ($0.38), Stir Fry Veggie Mix ($1.48)

Ultimate goal: Create a gourmet (loose term, right?) stir fry with good flavor to disguise the Ramen noodles.

I chose an Asian-inspired cuisine route because I had the most experience cooking with noodles, rice, and chicken, and thus creating a stir fry gave me the best chance to turn anything I cooked into "gourmet." [I don't have the best reputation as a cook, and when I told my husband I had to create a gourmet meal he laughed, until I told him he was my taste tester.] I used three additional ingredients I already had in my cupboard: Vegetable oil, a can of Kirkland Chicken Breast from Costco, and Yoshida's Original Gourmet Sauce (it had "gourmet" in the title!) I figured the addition of these three ingredients would still have kept my budget under $7 if I had purchased them in the store. And thus began my attempt at a meal.

Adding Stir Fry Veggies

Chicken breast & veggies in wok 

Step 1: Boil 2 cups water, Add Top Ramen noodles, and stir occasionally for 3 minutes. [*note, the silver package of powder "oriental" flavoring should be promptly discarded in the trash.]

Step 2: Drain Ramen noodles; set aside. 

Step 3: Heat about 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil in a wok over medium-low heat.

Adding Yoshida sauce

Step 4: Add 1/2 package of Stir Fry Veggie Mix. Stir until veggies are golden-brown.

Don't forget the Ramen!

Step 5: Open can of Kirkland Chicken Breast; Drain. Add chicken breast and Yoshida sauce (about 1/2 cup) to veggies in wok. Mix well.

Step 6: Add Ramen Noodles; Mix well. Let stir fry concoction mingle over medium-low heat for a few minutes, to ensure saturation of Yoshida sauce into bland Ramen noodles.

Step 7: Serve stir fry to yourself and a taste tester, and record the results.

Results:

The finished product!

Alright, so the stir fry didn't end up looking too terrible. It looked like it could pass as a hearty side dish, even. Upon tasting, my husband decided that it was . . . still a little lacking. He said I needed to add some heat to the dish (recommending chili peppers or hot sauce, perhaps) as it was a little bland, despite the Yoshida sauce. His direct quote about the dish as a whole was, "well, it's better than regular Top Ramen." My own taste buds found the dish lacking as well-- I could pick up on the saltiness that I'd been going for, and the sweet-tang of the Yoshida sauce, but the Ramen noodles were characteristically mushy and bland. We both, however, finished our bowls. 

So, I'd like to think I transformed Top Ramen into a creative, tasteful dish (I had good intentions?), but my taste tester and I still found it lacking in the heat and spice one would expect from Asian-inspired cooking. Points for trying? It was, after all, a cheap meal that differed from the straight-forward college meal of Ramen noodles with salt-laden flavor packet.

I'm leaving the "gourmet" status of the meal up for debate.

The Taste Test

This week's prompt: perform a blind-folded taste test of the same food item from two grocery stores of varying quality and judge purely the taste of eating healthier. I chose to shop at Moscow's Winco and Safeway stores. I was looking for produce that I could buy at both, because I thought produce might be an easier source to differ in quality, and settled on buying two ears of sweet corn from both.






WINCO
Type: sweet yellow corn
Price: 0.76 cents for two ears
Origin: Wissel Farms-- Nampa, ID




SAFEWAY
Type: sweet yellow corn
Price: $1.00 for two ears
Origin: USA



Price conclusion-- the corn from Winco was 12 cents cheaper. Now for the taste test results. Below are the initial taste responses from myself and a friend, both of us blindfolded:


                                              Corn #1 (Winco Corn)            Corn #2 (Safeway Corn)
Blindfolded Friend:

                                              Good Sugar                                More Bitter
                                              Ripe                                            Distinct "leafy" flavor
                                              Very Sweet                                 Fairly Crisp
                                              Very Crisp

Blindfolded Me:

                                              Really Sweet                               Not as Sweet
                                              Very Firm                                    Not as Fresh/Crisp
                                              Juicy                                            Soft/ Mushy
                                                                                                   Bland


Overall, the first corn (from Winco) was much better than the corn from Safeway. My blindfolded friend said he could tell it was picked before it was ripe by the "green" flavor he could distinguish. After taking off the blindfold, he said he could also tell it had been picked earlier by looking at the top of the ear of the corn: the one from Safeway with the "green" taste had not been allowed to fully mature all of its kernels (in the photo at right, the cob on the left is the one from Safeway, whereas the cob on the right from Winco has a full ear of kernels.) That made me suspect that the corn from Safeway (pinned down only to the location of somewhere-in-the-USA) had probably been picked early in order to be shipped across states.


The results of the taste test surprised me a little bit at first (I have to admit I was just assuming that the more expensive produce from Safeway was going to taste better.) But the corn from Winco was the overwhelmingly better, tastier choice-- and cheaper as well. So my main conclusion was: it doesn't necessarily matter which store you buy your food from, but where your food comes from before it hits the grocery aisle shelves.

The source of the Safeway corn was vague to say the least, and it was disappointing to only trace it as specifically as its "product of USA" label. I had no idea what farm or even what state the corn had come from. The corn from Winco, however, named its direct provider and (fairly local) location. After researching Wissel Farms from Nampa, ID, I was pleasantly surprised to find that their mission statement on their website even declared no GMOs:

"The most important thing about produce is that it is FRESH. Also we absolutely do not use any genetically modified seeds (GMO). With that in mind, our main focus is to grow and deliver our produce directly to our retailers and customers, so that it is fresh as possible."

The website went on to list all the farm's produce and retailers in the Idaho Treasure Valley Region. Wissel Farms also provided a family history background on their homepage, describing the progression of their farm.


Here's the link if you'd like to check it out:

http://www.wisselfarms.com/wissel-farms.html

So, in the end, if you can track where your food is coming from (preferably a local, non GMO source) chances are you'll enjoy a healthier and tastier meal. And if that meal comes from a cheaper provider like Winco, there's no need to write off cheaper food as automatically being of lesser quality.