Friends hi and welcome to a new series on Joy the Baker called Here’s What I’m Eating. A series in which we cut the recipe and all the formalities and talk about what’s really going down in the kitchen. As a certified Food Person, I think we should talk what we really fill our bowls with on the day to day. For me right now? I’m staring down a bowl of cottage cheese, pretzels, and celery sticks and calling it lunch. For dinner? There’s a whole sack of sweet potatoes that need roasting and figuring out. I have sugar cookies to make *content* so the rest of the day’s food will be simple and eaten on the couch.
First up in our series, Karlee Flores, creator of @oliveandartisan on Instagram and, as of late, photographer here at Joy the Baker. Karlee is incredible in the kitchen but what I love most is how down to earth her everyday food is. Here’s Karlee on the rich humility of ramen.
My love to you.
xo Joy
Every afternoon my stomach pangs and I’m forced to stop what I’m doing to eat some mandatory food. And lately, there’s been only one food on my mind. I find my hand automatically reaches for the crunchy orange package. Today, like yesterday and tomorrow, it’s instant ramen lunch.
I grab the classics from the fridge; chili crisp, sesame oil, chili oil, a boiled egg if I have it and a severed cluster of scallions. Some days I sauté the noodles in hoisin sauce and a pat of butter, or I add a glossy egg yolk if I have it left over from a recipe I was working on that morning. Today I’m keeping it basic: Brothy ramen, a large spoon, and chopsticks.
I add the sesame and chili oil to the water as it boils with the chicken flavor™. Cook the noodles to just underdone. Top with loads of pepper – the kind that’s pulverized into oblivion. A glob of chili crisp and my favorite seat at my dining room table – I’m ready to fog up my glasses.
Instant ramen seems inflation proof. And when a paper bag of groceries now costs me $68 dollars, it makes me start looking for ways to stretch the grocery budget a little further. I’m no stranger to hard times, and I can tighten my belt with the best of them.
My family didn’t have much when I was growing up, and most months were hard, but necessity is indeed the mother of invention. In fact, instant ramen was re-invented many times into its many iterations. It was crunched up in summer salads, sautéed with lunch meat on my dorm room hot plate, and stuffed into backpacks when we would go camping.
Nowadays it seems like all the food will kill you. Meals our great grandparents ate are now on the naughty list. We’re to eat bone broth and wash our mouths out with coconut oil. Kale is good for you but not as good as we once thought. We now need to avoid peanuts (5.99) but treat our hypothyroidism with brasil nuts (17.99).
I don’t want to stick up my nose anymore to the meals that get us to the next paycheck. The ones that warm our bellies and feed kids. I want to embrace eating. For nostalgia. For hunger. For pleasure. And yes, for our health but also for our bottom lines.
So, here’s to a steaming bowl of instant ramen. Let’s slurp the last of its broth down to the fallen bits. We’re thankful for each meal no matter how humble. They’ve gotten us this far.
Karlee
15 Responses
Ramen is my favourite dish, especially when I’m working at the office. I often order it when we go for lunch at a nearby Asian restaurant in coworking Bergen. But unfortunately, I can’t make one on my own, at home. It always comes up not delicious enough. By the way, does someone know a good asian online store to order ingredinces for ramen?
Yesss! “Fancy” ramen is on constant rotation in this household. For a vegetarian twist: if you’re able, get your hands on the elusive “Soy Sauce” flavor noodles that can easily be taken up a notch. Or make your own broth using miso paste, veggie bouillon, and the fancy-ramen-bar secret ingredient for rich, creamy, umami veg. ramen: Sunflower Butter. TRUST. Then top it all with sesame oil-charred broccolini, a jammy egg, green onions, and chili oil. Ok, brb to make some.
I love this series and i love this post. Times are hard enough without food shame and guilt. Thanks so much for this and long live ramen (also this POTS-ie bod needs all the sodium it can get!).
YES to unfussy, affordable meals. I’m a big fan of zhuzhing up instant ramen for a quick meal – a soft boiled egg, sesame oil, green onions, maybe some furikake. To add some veg, I’ll throw in frozen spinach to cook with the noodles.
I love so much about this.
Thus far I’ve been doing lots of boxed max n cheese because my young kids will eat it, complete with cooked-from-frozen peas/leftover roasted veggies and whatever fruit is around. As others have said, so many look down on this stuff but if it gets a body fed sometimes that is what is most important.
To share, two good food resources I’ve found to help stretch a budget are the team at Budget Bytes as well as the blog Cook With What You Have (a subscription comes with my CSA box and makes sure I actually use the veggies I buy).
Another resource I love and use a lot for myself and clients (I am a social worker) is the $4/day cookbook. A few years ago it was created to show how many things could be cooked on the budget given to households on SNAP, and it is full of wonderful suggestions and photos.
What is Chili Crisp?
What’s chili crisp btw? I know what chili oil is but not that…have you ever tried adding Furikake seasoning to your ramen? We do it here in Hawaii a lot….
I appreciate this so much! Especially as the mom to two very young boys (7 & 3) who will gobble down an entire pint of blueberries at breakfast and then refuse to eat anything else that grew out of the ground all day.
With grocery bills sky high, making a meal that my babes pick at and then cry “starvation!” ten minutes after we’ve left the table isn’t an option. I can’t afford to throw away a full healthy meal that’s been slobbered over, chewed up and spat out. I need reliable snacks and lunches that will actually fill them up. So yeah, I have ramen on hand, and boxed mac and cheese, and I find the balance elsewhere, in cheap ass, homemade chocolate banana milkshakes, pureed canned pears in pancake batter (they have no idea it’s in there!), and all the damn blueberries while their on sale.
Thank you for this tribute to the humble ramen. Maybe someday, they’ll let me elevate it with scallions and sesame oil, but for now, I’m just grateful to have something I can throw together that guarantees cheers when I put it in front of them. <3
I really love what you have to say in this post. There is a lot of value in how we need to strike up a balance in affordability and healthy quick eating. These are challenges unto themselves. and you came up with a way to address them. Thank you.
Thank you so much, Sue! That is the balance isn’t it?
Wow this was timely! I thinned radishes in my garden today and decided to use the greens like Kale in a ramen dish. I wish I could send you a picture! GREAT MINDS! I also reached for Chili Krisp! Along with deydrated onions and minced garlic! I dont use the entire flavor packet because I have high blood pressure, but I do use a pinch. I use a lot of strong flavors to punch things up and I barely miss the sodium. The radish greens were excellent! Its like a sign I need to follow you that I found you today.
Oh yeah. Whipped my ramen lunch up at home two days ago to try and slurp down before a meeting. Wasn’t successful BUT I like adding a pile of kimchee.
Love this post/new series, Joy and Karlee! I am indeed a fan of doctoring up the instant ramen. It’s certainly a way I stretched the family grocery budget through the winter. Thanks for reminding us that food can be humble, comforting, and delicious, all at once.
Glad to see I’m not the only one enjoying the nostalgia of instant ramen! Brings me back to my college days and is always delicious.