Simpler Thymes

food, tea, and the neighbor's flock

[carnivorousmoon]

I had a weird eating day where I had leftover salmon for lunch, then had snacks a few hours later because I was still hungry, and then never had supper. Now its 9:30 PM and I'm hungry but don't want to eat anything heavy because i want to go to bed in the next 2-3 hours.

LETS TRY SOME SOUP.

I brought my own green onion but there was so much in the packet I didn't need it. I also brought chili oil and kimchi to the table and didn't need either as the soup had plenty of sesame oil and adequate spice (the broth flavoring was reminiscent of a mild kimchi). I did end up adding a soft boiled egg however, and that was pretty tasty!

[carnivorousmoon]

I cook so much ramen you probably wonder if I know how to cook at all...

GUESS WHAT. I CAN.

I made salmon in creamed spinach on a garlic-parsley herbed quinoa and parmesan roasted asparagus. That's a sun dried tomato on top of the salmon.

So now you know that while I can cook, i'm just lazy and would rather just slice some veggies and call it a day. And I have 3 more meals of this to go and my sister doesn't eat fish and my mom avoids spinach because it causes her to make kidney stones. OH BOY LEFTOVERS

[carnivorousmoon]

I DON'T LIVE ON RAMEN ALL THE TIME.

TIME FOR A TEA POST.

S-T-R-A-W-B-E-R-R-Y L-E-M-O-N-A-D-E

I did a blind testing on my mom and sister and no one could guess strawberry because PINEAPPLE is the first ingredient. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT?

It's still good, regardless. The lemon really shines through and you get strong notes of hibiscus. We drank it hot and i'm struggling to save half a cup to try cold because WHO DRINKS HOT LEMONADE WTF.

We did. All three of us. It was still good; just like a lemony hot tea instead of lemonade. It doesn't even need sugar because it's sweet enough from the fruit bits.

I'll put the remainder outside and add an edit to see how it is cold.

[carnivorousmoon]

I MADE SO MUCH RAMEN

Good news: this is only 1 packet. It says its 1 serving. 1 serving is only 370 calories.

What happened is I added too many vegetables. 1 radish, 1/4 carrot, 1 mushroom, 1 green onion, a handful of snap peas, and 3 whole leaves of bok choi. At the bottom of the mountain is half a turkey wing (the lower half) and one of my soft boiled eggs cracked during the boiling so it went in also.

Hopefully my stomach can match my eyes because ramen is horrible reheated 😅

Since this is a new ramen to me, I should mention it!

I'm learning that anything "Tokyo style" seems to have very light, clean flavors and this is no different. It was a pale broth with a simple chicken flavor that helped keep all the other flavors at the forefront. The turkey was rich and meaty, every vegetable tasted like a slightly enhanced version of itself, the noodles were wheat but ever so slightly enhanced with chicken flavor. The broth was just a background character made to help the others shine, and I can respect that.

But I like the Momosan Tonkotsu more.

[carnivorousmoon]

My first instant bibimbap meal! This is pretty much a picture adventure as there's a lot going on here. So you get a few packets, a microwavable bowl of rice, and a spoon. It tasted fine as is (the gochujang and sesame oil make it spicy and savory) but the vegetables are kinda wimpy. I mean, those bean sprouts scream "la choy in a can." So I added some fresh radish, carrot, cucumber, and a side of kim chi. Do recommend the extras! It turned it into a light supper, which was perfect!

[carnivorousmoon]

Miso ramen!

If you're familiar with miso soup, you'll recognize the base of this one. Miso is fermented soybean paste. Its salty, earthy, and savory. It works with a lot of ingredients so I made this one robust, adding mushrooms, radish, seaweed, and a little cucumber to bring fresh notes. I added turkey again, but this time used a meaty thigh portion for richness.

I should mention that very little of my ingredients go to waste. I offer cartilage and veins from the meat to my sister's dog and the rest goes to supplementing the flock of chickens (and Turkey Jeff) that live next door. Chickens can have almost anything... including chicken. But they can't have onion, eggplant, avocado, or the green parts of potatoes. We have very little food garbage that sees the garbage can here!

[carnivorousmoon]

New ramen time!

OMG IT TASTES LIKE HOMEMADE CHICKEN SOUP

I didn't realize how hearty this was going to taste. I mean, I added carrots, mushrooms, and the upper half of a turkey wing, so I should have, but I don't always think about these things while i'm making them. I just toss in things that are tasty together and follow a rough theme. 😅

So about this ramen: if your favorite flavor of poverty ramen is "creamy chicken" this one is the grown up version. So throw in some veggies, a little cooked meat, maybe an egg, and proclaim that you're adulting now. 😘

[carnivorousmoon]

TTEOK-BOKKI!

I don't even know how to pronounce it, but I LIKE THEM.

So what are tteok-bokki? They're chewy tube shaped rice cakes! And they ARE chewy! Like gummi worms! But made of rice! As the packaging picture says, it's Korean Soul food (Seoul food perhaps? Ha ha)

Obviously, the flavor in this dish comes from the sauce. This one is sweet and sour, but also spicy and just a little bit pungent. It's a curious combination that makes me want more. This brand came with little sheets of dried fish cake (I had to look at the ingredient list to find that out. I thought they were tofu the whole time i was eating it).

I added pickled vegetables, green onions, pickled quail eggs, and topped with sesame cucumber and a soft boiled egg.

This made 2 servings. I skipped breakfast so I ate most of it and will definitely finish the rest later. The pouches were separated by portion so I wasn't required to make both servings (american companies should take note of how awesome that is when you're single) but 1) I WAS HONGRY 🐷 and 2) it looked so much better in my picture-taking bowl. One portion would have required a much smaller bowl or would have looked lost at the bottom of this one.

IMMA BUY THIS AGAIN SOME DAY. It's weird but I like it!

[carnivorousmoon]

I said I was going to do a supper post, but i'm tired and not particularly hungry so supper is a cup of milk and i'm trying this cookie for the first time.

WHY ARE THESE SO HARD AND GUMMY?!?! THEY GOT A YEAR LEFT BEFORE EXPIRY BUT I GOTTA BITE THEM WITH MY MOLARS EVEN THOUGH I HAVE GOOD STRONG TEETH. WTF.

These are supposed to be very sweet. They're more like girl scout shortbread cookie sweet, which every kid knows is the least sweet of all girl scout cookies. Looking at the ingredients, they didn't even use honey to make these EVEN THOUGH THAT IS PART OF THE NAME. HONEY. PASTRY. IN KOREAN "YAK" MEANS HONEY (ok, it actually translates to "medicine" but that's because they are made with a LOT of honey, which was considered medicinal. So medicine = honey in this case) SO ITS NOT A BAD TRANSLATION. I EXPECTED HONEY.

I might have to try dunking them in coffee in the AM. These things have the firmness of dog biscuits. For being packaged in plastic twice, I expected something a lot fresher.

I've never bought these before because they go for $3-4 a roll which I feed steep for cookies. Save your money for a different treat. At least not this brand if you do try them.

[carnivorousmoon]

As long as I have pickled vegetables to eat up, expect frequent posts!

Menraku Spicy Sesame ramen.

I LOVE sesame and this one did not disappoint. I could swim in a tub of the broth this made. It was so rich and just a little bit spicy. I dolled it up with finely diced turkey thigh meat, pickled root veggies, sesame marinated cucumber, green onions, and just a little seaweed and a little extra sesame seeds.

I like to take pictures of bowls before I garnish. They usually have bits of dried vegetable, unlike ramen bricks. This one had green onions. Green onions are great with sesame anything, so I added some extra fresh slices just to amp it up.

The pickled veggies worked way better in this bowl. They added contrast to the rich broth. The radishes have lost their fresh looking charm, but they're still crunchy and tasty.

Expect another post for supper! I'm thinking of trying instant bibimbap!

[carnivorousmoon]

Time for something new...

I've only had rice congee before. Congee is just another word for porridge so I expected it to be heavy on the grain (the first solid ingredient is oats) but this one surprised me because it is heavy on BEANS.

Omg i'm eating a bowl of sweetened beans that looks like swamp water for breakfast. This is apparently what i'm doing with my life.

On the plus side the spoon it came with is adorable. Asian to-go food almost always comes with a utensil. Some of them end up being seriously nice for being disposable. This is one of the more basic offerings as it's just barely long enough and the spoon doesn't hold a ton, but if I was somewhere where i had no access to spoons and forgot my own, this would do just fine.

I bought two of these as they were cheap and sounded like something i like, but once i eat the second one my curiosity will be settled forever. Its edible, but i'm not feeling it.

[carnivorousmoon]

First official post! I'll be posting about the different eats and drinks I try (mostly tea and asian instant meals) and this was my first go with this particular brand. So I present to you: Red Chef - Spicy Sakura Prawn Soup Noodles

THIS IS THE STINKIEST RAMEN I'VE EVER MADE.

For real though, I bought it on good reviews, but HOLY MOLY. My mom is in the next room over and as soon as I added the seasoning she was all "WHAT ARE YOU MAKING? IT STINKS LIKE FISH."

Correction: it stinks like someone microwaved fish in the break room. Nobody is happy about that.

So it's shrimp flavored, spicy, and comes with fried onion garnish, because how can you make fish even stinker? By adding onion to it.

I added arugula/spinach blend, sesame seasoned cucumbers, and quick-pickled carrots and radishes. I'm digging the pickled radish but the carrot and cucumber need to find another ramen bowl. These come as a case of 4 so next time i'll skip the greens and probably add only radish... and probably that egg like the packaging shows. After trying it, an egg would be pretty legit.

The soup itself honestly tastes pretty decent. It has a curious mouthfeel that is velvety... but also slightly gritty so it nearly feels like ground up velvet on the tongue. Not a bad thing, just not something i'm used to with ramen.

[carnivorousmoon]

[carnivorousmoon]

New Year/New Tea

[carnivorousmoon]

[carnivorousmoon]

I've had this blog for a year. IT'S ABOUT TIME I DO SOMETHING WITH IT.

Greetings! 2020 is nearly over and considering I spent a month of it fighting off death via the rona, good riddance! Since my recovery I am currently helping care for my injured mother and as I can't participate in single-girl city life during this pandemic, i'm spending my time cooking, brewing tea, and trying to keep myself entertained in a small town in North Dakota that I never intended to live in once I left at 18.

For December I did an AdvenTea on my facebook. It went over well and I received feedback to continue with the posts, but I felt another platform would be more appropriate so this is going to be where I share the things I make and the things I find while living in the sticks. I promise i'll try to be charming in my own special way.