I'm going to try something a bit different and attempt a series of "themed" posts. Given that it's more or less the start of August, most of you have probably guessed it: I'm going to focus on school-related things! Okay, well, sort of. I'm going splits between food you can get away with at the dorm, and after school snacks for my people out there who either have or care for children. Themed posts usually come with some rules, so here's what I'm rolling with. For dorm food posts, I'm shooting for things that don't really take any special equipment to make, and that utilize foods that are either generally considered college staples (in America at least... context makes everything make sense), or that can be found at the dollar store / for relatively cheap. For the after school snacks, I'm aiming for things that appeal to the collective tiny human palate, are generally easy to eat, and aren't too atrociously unhealthy. So no epic sugar explosions, but I may reserve the right to call for a small bit of chocolate or caramel.
That all having been said, today's post is from the dorm food side of the theme, in honor of my sister, who's heading off to college this year. Congrats, kid! You did it!
Living in a very rural portion of the United States, it's fairly hard to be exposed to any form of international cuisine, discounting the cheap most-assuredly-NOT-authentic Asian Buffets that crop up pretty much everywhere. But, many years back, my mom hit some sort of, I don't know, massive food clearance sale at somewhere that carried all kinds of wonderful foreign ingredients, and brought me back several bags worth of goodies. Among the plethora of delightfulness, I found what I eventually figured out was a cup-noodle variant of Thai Peanut Noodles. Now, I realize that this is probably a far stretch from the real stuff, but I wasn't going to complain. I was just thankful it wasn't fried chicken. Long story short, it was **amazing**.
There was only one problem with this, though. After having ran out of the stock pile that my mother got on the cheap. I went to the grocery store and found out that getting more of them was going to be insanely expensive. Ugh. Turns out it's not that hard to make, though. Full disclosure: the recipe you'll find below is based off of some research that ultimately landed me on All Recipes.
Ingredients:
- 1/2c Creamy Peanut Butter
- 1 can Coconut Milk
- If you can catch them on a good day, Dollar Tree actually carries this in their food section
- 3tbsp Lime Juice
- 2tbsp Soy Sauce
- 2tbsp Hot Sauce
- I somewhat cheated here. I used sriracha (rooster) sauce. I didn't bother to check if it actually was available within the price range, but you can use whatever hot sauce you want, and I've seen plenty of hot sauces on the shelf in the dollar section. Although, seriously, every parent that's reading this for their kid in college, send them a bottle of sriracha. It lasts forever and is super versatile. It's honestly about the only reason I didn't go insane at college, because it gave me the capacity to break up the monotony.
- 1tsp Garlic Powder
- NOT garlic salt
- 1/2 tsp Ground Ginger
- 2 pkgs Ramen Noodles, Minus Flavor Packets
- Water
Equipment:
- Stove or Hot Plate
- Pot
- Sauce Pan / Skillet
- Stir Spoon
- Heat-Resistant Whisk
- Strainer
Good news! This recipe is fairly easy and will actually serve two people, perfect for splitting with a roommate or a significant other. If you only want one serving... well, if you've made it to college, it's pretty widely assumed that you can accurately do simple division.
You're going to need to break out your multi-tasking skills for this recipe. In the pot, put some water on to boil. In the sauce pan, put all of the coconut milk and the peanut butter. You're going to want to put this on the lowest setting your burner has. You're basically just trying to barely warm it up enough for the peanut butter to get a little less thick. This stuff can and will burn very easily, so unless you are trying to sacrifice your dinner, assume I'm dead serious about the lowest heat setting thing.
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| Trust me, it'll look better here shortly. |
Once the water in the pot is boiling, put in the blocks of ramen noodles. Meanwhile, you're going to want to be gently but thoroughly stirring the peanut butter until it essentially melts into the coconut milk. It starts out looking kind of... weird, but it'll get ironed out eventually. Actually, I stand corrected. If you're ironing the sauce, you're doing something wrong. From there, fully mix in all of the other liquid ingredients, and season to taste with the herbs.
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| A little patience goes a long way. |
Once your noodles are done cooking, strain them and transfer to a bowl. From here, you can add as much sauce as you want. I'm really more of the kind that prefers a whole bowl of sauce with a few rogue noodles in it, but I'm weird like that. All that's left to do now is to let it cool.
How well did yours turn out? Let me know in the comments!
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