Top Ramen or Mac & Cheese

Which do you like and how do you make them tolerable?

Aaah, the college years.

My roommates and I lived on Top Ramen, Mac and Cheese, or tuna.

On Sundays back in Austin, when we would have a big "family meal" all together, pooling our resources, we'd have Top Ramen, Mac and Cheese, AND tuna! Wow - a veritable FEAST, let me tell you.

Mark would add any vegetables he could find, especially cabbage, to the soup when he made the Sunday Ramen. Tasted pretty damned good!

I have always been a big fan of the cheap Kraft Mac & Cheese. My dad used to make it so good. His secret: Not only did he add the "optional" 1/4 cup of butter, but also put in an extra slice of Kraft singles. Now that was the "cheesiest"!

Although, there is something to be said about getting 20 packs of Top Ramen for $1.

Gotta be the old college version of spagetti - ramen with ketchup packlets stolen from Jack In The Box....
MMMMMMMmmmmmmm.....

In the lean years, my sister and I would buy a gallon of milk, a box of margarine, 8 for a dollar boxes of mac & cheese and a bunch of broccoli. Ramen was also 10 cents a bag and we bought as much as our leftover from our $20. We lived off that crap daily, our skin should have turned orange and we should have dried out from all the salt. I still can not eat mac & cheese or Ramen. **** shudder ****

What, exactly is Top Ramen?
I've never heard of it.
Is that like Ichiban(itchybum) noodles?

On 2005-05-05 13:15, stuff-o-rama wrote:
In the lean years, my sister and I would buy a gallon of milk, a box of margarine, 8 for a dollar boxes of mac & cheese and a bunch of broccoli.

Ah, yes. I called those years "college". A little garlic salt in the water and a can of tuna made it OK..added needed protein. Sometimes, just for nostalgia's sake, I'll still make up a batch. It's always a mistake, BTW!

Mac and cheese.The kraft stuff in the box with the powdered cheese sauce.To make it extry good,take another cheese sauce packet from another box-make double cheeses sauce-noodle dynamite!

On 2005-05-05 06:53, Gigantalope wrote:
Which do you like and how do you make them tolerable?

Top off the ramen with some chopped green onion - adds a bit of freshness to noodles that have probably been in their plastic packages for over 25 years.

I agree with Johntiki but I add fresh cilantro besides green onions and some shrimp and squeeze some fresh lime on top and it is quiet tasty .....yum....( I know, I know, but I like it).

Tikiwahini, Top Ramen is a low-brow version of Sopparo-Ichiban...costs about 20 cents a package, and is stale usually.

It's lippids and salt...needs sugar and alcohol to be the perfect food.

On 2005-05-05 18:41, Gigantalope wrote:
Tikiwahini, Top Ramen is a low-brow version of Sopparo-Ichiban...costs about 20 cents a package, and is stale usually.

It's lippids and salt...needs sugar and alcohol to be the perfect food.

bahaha, alcohol makes everything edible!
Take sherry trifle for example!

Had Mac & Cheese the other night, man I need groceries! Margerine, milk and ketchup are my weapons of choice.

I'm a fan of wieners & beans as a low cost cooking alternative. As long as the beans are maple flavored. Mmmmmm.

cap'n crunch...

Cap'N Crunch also makes an excellent breading for fried chicken.

Mmmmm, Cap'nCrunch Chicken ... just reading that slows the blood flowing through the arteries, but doesn't make me want it any less!

As far as making the macaroni and cheese tolerable, cayenne pepper always saves the day, or some panko bread crumbs tossed on top, and a quick trip to the broiler.

I was lucky enough to have a dad that could whip up macaroni and cheese from scratch that could put six hyper kids into dazed contentment for at least six hours. He swears the recipe had no animal tranquilizers in it, but three types of cheese.

On 2005-05-05 15:59, docwoods wrote:
Mac and cheese.The kraft stuff in the box with the powdered cheese sauce.To make it extry good,take another cheese sauce packet from another box-make double cheeses sauce-noodle dynamite!

That is EXACTLY what I would do to make mac and cheese even better. The other secret... so that it did not get too liquidity... was not to add the entire 1/4 cup of milk. I add the milk slowly until the mac and cheese obtains the desired consistency -- thick and creamy, but not dry.

On occassion, we would fashion a hamburger helper-esque meal using mac and cheese as the base. We would brown some hamburger meat, and then add a little bit of tomato sauce, and canned corn. Mmmm....

With ramen, I never ate it as soup. I would just make the noodles, and then pour in a little bit from the seasoning packet to give it some flavor. (Made the mistake of pouring the entire packet on the noodles once and the MSG was way overpowering!)

Slice up a few hotdogs or some slices of bologna, brown them in a skillet with a little butter, and add them to the finished Mac and Cheese. My idea of heaven when I was a kid.

Sabu

Though I'm a bit past survival food these days, mac & cheese and Top Ramen are still some of my favorites. When I took care of my grandkids one summer I would fix them
"Magic Soup". We got very creative by not only putting green onions on top but any little scrap of leftover meat in it. The next step to elevate this meager meal was the addition of an egg, swirled around. Truely makes it a meal fit for kings.

Trustar

I prefer Cup O Noodles. The shrimp kind, you just add lots of hot sauce, it's all good.

Hey SS, there are some great flavors of Cup-O-Noodles (Poodles?) I'm fond of the spicy ones with lime...although it's a shame to waste mixer fruit on such frivolity as eating.

Also they can be "cooked" with a microwave and water...but you have less control that with the old stand-byes that had to be manualy boiled.

On 2005-05-10 14:26, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:
Slice up a few hotdogs or some slices of bologna, brown them in a skillet with a little butter, and add them to the finished Mac and Cheese. My idea of heaven when I was a kid.

Sabu

This's also the secret to "Maui Fried Rice," leftover rice, frozen peas & carrots, and hot dogs cut into disks.

Man this is some serious bachelor talk.

Let's not even get started on HOT POCKETS!!!

Ah yes, Macaroni and Cheese. I had times when this was a food staple more commonly consumed than I'd have liked.

I made it semi-tolerable by just going back to the basics of proper cooking:

1. Salt the boiling water - always respect your pasta, even if it's so humble.

2. Make sure the macaroni is al-dente (slightly firmer than usual because of the additional cooking in the "cheesing" step).

3. Never use margarine - it's still 100% fat, and tastes rank. I just do not understand the appeal of margarine at all.

4. Make sure the butter's melted and has well coated the macaroni, and use a heat diffuser under the saucepan to avoid hot-spots (I'm assuming if you're so cheap to be cooking "kraft dinner" you don't have good cookware)... stir gently, but frequently.

5. Pour about 1/3 of the milk into the saucepan and stir. Wait a moment for the temperature to rise. [I minimise heat loss by pre-measuring the milk as I put the water on the boil].

6. Crush the packet of powdered "cheese" until all of the lumps are gone, open the packet, and sprinkle the cheese into macaroni/butter/milk mixture, stirring frequently, avoiding clumps if possible.

It's like making corn starch thickening mixtures: you aim to "cut" the powder into a smallish bit of liquid and slowly add more so it makes an even consistency.

7. As the mix "dries" out, add a bit more milk, and stir, until the "cheese" and milk are used up. I hold back on the milk to "dial-in" the consistency.

8. If you're a wealthy enough student to have some crockware, put the mess into a dish and sprinkle with seasoned breadcrumbs, and put under the broiler for a few minutes.

Cheap additions: blanched frozen peas, slices of ham, drained tuna fish, etc.

I could never eat "Kraft Dinner" as an adult now, though... Making the real thing is just too easy, and so damned tasty.

Even for kids, as much as they "love" the Kraft Dinner stuff [colourful marketing I guess], they always like my from-scratch Macaroni and Cheese better, this despite my using more "adult" cheeses in it.

As for Ramen, I've done some pretty "fancy" implementations:

(a package of Thai seasoned ramen noodles is assumed here: with an included dry spice packet along with a spice-paste packet)

Prep: slice up some meat and desired vegetables (broccoli is nice), and boil the required quantity of water.

1. In a saucepan, saute bits of sliced pork with crushed garlic + ginger.

2. Into this pan, add fresh broccoli and any other "crunchy" vegetables you might like. Saute gently, and as the nice green colour intensifies, add the spice paste and turn down the heat a little. Coat the sauteed meat+veggies thoroughly - you'll get some wickedly nice chile/galangal/fish sauce aromas at this stage.

3. Turn up the flame to high, and add the boiling water (whatever the package on the noodles states), and give the noodles about 1-2 minutes tops, then up-end the lot into a nice big asian soup bowl, garnish with fresh lime juice and cilantro.

It's quite respectable, though fatty as hell. All of those ramen noodle packs are nasty: palm oils and mega-MSG/Salt. I think one of them blows your max daily sodium budget.

=Kukoae=

I'm with trustar, I would make it into a soup also. Thinly sliced celery, lots of chopped onion, a sprinkle of pepper, and swirl in a scrambled egg to make a kind of egg-drop soup.

You can buy a huge, I mean a huge box of Top Ramen from Costo for about $3 bucks.

My younger brother won't tough the stuff anymore, but as kids, (after my father passed away--our "lean years") we called Top Ramen "steak".

Mac and cheese, well we used to doctor it up with a little ground beef, onions and broccoli.

During my first couple semesters at college I got so lazy that I didn't want to cook anything, mac & cheese included, that I started buying Chef Boyardee's Beefaroni. And I've got to tell you... that is a damn fine meal for coming out of a can! It was actually the only "college food" I never got tired of. Even today I still get an occasional craving for Beefaroni but I think my vegetarian wife would freak out if she saw me eating or let alone buying such processed, preservative-laden, unhealthy garbage!

Oh Chef Boyardee how I miss your friendly moustached face!!

I'm currently going through a faze where I'm scarfing down lottsa Maruchan Instant Wonton (chicken or sweet 'n sour flavour). I can usually pick 'em up 3 for a dollar. Back in the "Early Devouring Period" before the advent of microwaves (1970's) I would often sustain myself on popcorn and baked potatoes (must've had someting to do with my western european heritige).

On 2005-05-13 20:53, johntiki wrote:
During my first couple semesters at college I got so lazy that I didn't want to cook anything, mac & cheese included, that I started buying Chef Boyardee's Beefaroni...

Chef Boyardee Beefaroni is the sign of the imminent arrival of the "End Times"?

On 2005-05-11 23:11, suicide_sam wrote:
I prefer Cup O Noodles.

Cup O'Noodles is Irish food! :lol:

On 2005-05-13 20:53, johntiki wrote:
I started buying Chef Boyardee's Beefaroni.

I prefer his ravioli myself.

They served some nasty form of beefaroni in my elementary school cafeteria. We called it "BARFaroni."

How did I miss this topic?

When making ramen noodles: after the noodles are cooked to your preference, drain off the water and throw in a couple of chunks of butter or margarine, half the packet of seasoning and all the basil you can get your hands on. Yum.

When making mac and cheese: Don't forget to throw in that half packet from the ramen noodles to give your mac and cheese an exotic flavor. Black and cayenne pepper is good stuff also.

Damn you all got me hungry for some noodles!

My college meal of choice was stir-fried broccoli with soy sauce. Not as a side, as a meal. I'd just fry it up in cheap oil and mow down on that broccoli!

When it was 4 years school/work/sleep I was so lazy with Ramen I'd consume that I'd rip open the package in front of The TV and sprinkle the flavor packet on the noodles as a condiment and have it as a crunchy dinner. Although the Beef flavor always left a dog foodlike aftertaste and the more upscale brands had a packet of sesame seed oil to cleanse the pallet.

And what exactly is Oriental Flavor?