10 Minute Meal

Pierre Dance's Note:

Ramen has been a standby over years of back packing, motor camping and desert 'prospecting' where conserving water and cooking fuel were always at the front of our minds. A home made dehydrator added light weight, easy to use jerky and vegetables to the pot. Now any time I want a quick meal, as often as not it's Ramen. It's inexpensive, quick, and delicious. What more would you want?

• Total Time: 9 mins
• Prep Time: 6 mins
• Cook Time: 3 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 1

• ramen noodles, as many packages as needed
• 1 1/2 cups water or 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, per package of noodles

Options

• onion, chopped (green, red, yellow, white, pearl, sweet, leeks, chives or shallot)
• carrot (finely chopped, thinly sliced, or julienne, baby carrots work very well)
• celery (finely chopped or thinly sliced)
• mushroom (of whatever sort, thinly sliced, fresh, tinned, or dried)
• bell pepper, finely chopped (a mix of colors adds to the visual appeal)
• fresh yams or fresh sweet potato, julienne and cut to very thin bite size
• cherry tomatoes, quartered
• sausage (kielbasa, bratwurst, mettwurst, pepperoni, genoa, what have you, cut into thin bite-size bits)
• cold cuts beef (lamb, pork, ham, chicken or turkey, cut bite size)
• bacon, crumbled
• meatballs (crumbled or cut bite size) or meatloaf (crumbled or cut bite size)
• beef jerky, cut thinly across the grain
• cooked fish (fresh or tinned, anything but lobster, there are no recipes for leftover lobster, there's never any) or shell fish, clams, oysters, mussels, crawdads, s callops, etc (fresh or tinned, anything but lobster, there are no recipes for leftover lobster, there's never any)
• cheese (of every persuasion, grated, shredded, crumbled or cut into small cubes, Ramen with green onions and)
• soy sauce, Worcestershire, tamari, hot, barbecue (I prefer Cholulla hot sauce)
• mustard, horseradish, etc. (Anything I may have missed? Check your fridge and pantry, you'll find something)
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Bring the water or stock to a boil in a sauce pan.
2. Open the noodles.
3. If you like playing with long noodles leave them as is, if not break them into more manageable lengths (throw away the little 'flavor packet' of unpronounceable chemicals).
4. When pan boils, add the noodles and any options you desire and cook, covered for 3 minutes.
5. ADD ANY COOKED FISH OR SHELLFISH AFTER THE NOODLES ARE DONE TO AVOID OVERCOOKING IT.
6. Flavor with any sauce(s) you wish.
7. That's it start to table in 10 minutes.