Today is cereal day! But I ate the rest of my cereal yesterday, and I had a hankering for ramen today. So, I made this amazing ramen noodle bowl, inspired by Baker By Nature's 20-minute Sriracha Ramen Soup and customized to my pantry and tastes. I had my doubts, but omg, it was amazing. I will probably be eating this for the rest of the week. It is definitely my new go to when the craving strikes. There was the perfect amount of spice mixed with sweetness, and nuttiness with creaminess. Heaven in a bowl. Look below for my adaptation.
SPICY RAMEN NOODLE BOWL
recipe adapted from bakerbynature.com, 20 Minute Spicy Sriracha Ramen Noodle Soup
INGREDIENTS
- 2 tablespoons sesame oil
- 1.5 Tbsp sriracha hot sauce
- .5 Tbsp chipotle Tabasco sauce
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 Tbsp tomato paste
- 1 tsp dried ginger
- 5 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups vegetable broth, divided
- 3 cups beef broth, divided
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp rice vinegar
- 1 cup kale
- As much as desired: Your favorite noodles (I used one package of ramen noodles [throwing away the seasoning a packet] and one package of udon noodles [throwing away the seasoning a packet] and a handful of edamame pasta)
As desired for topping: soft boiled eggs, avocado, sesame seasoned (or plain) nori, creamed or regular corn
DIRECTIONS
- Add the sesame oil, sriracha, and tabasco sauce to a large stockpot and bring to a simmer over medium-heat.
- Add the onion and tomato paste and cook for 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add the ginger, garlic, garlic powder and salt; cook for 2 minutes or until fragrant.
- Add half of the broth. Using an immersion blender (or transferring to a stand blender) blend until the broth is almost smooth with only a few onion dices left, or to desired constancy until smooth.
- Return mixture to the pot and add the remaining broth. Bring the broth to a simmer; add soy sauce and vinegar, and simmer for 8-10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.
- Add the kale and ramen noodles to the broth and simmer for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until the noodles have softened.
- Once the noodles are cooked, remove pan from heat, and serve, topped with eggs, avocado, creamed corn, and nori.
- Enjoy amazingness in a bowl.
Note: If storing the soup for any length, separate the noodles from the broth after cooking, so that the noodles don't soak up all of the broth.
With the school year coming to an end, last minute project tweaks and final presentations to perfect, I was not at all in the mood for cooking. Not only that I really just wanted to sit in front of the t.v. with a giant bowl of eggless cookie dough, a pint of Ben & Jerry's new core flavors, maybe a ice cream cookie sandwich from Meadows, and veg out until my pizza delivery person rang my doorbell. At which point I would leave my cozy couch for a moment to grab the warm pizza bring it to my spot and veg some more. Sounds like the perfect night right?! However, that little scenario was only in my head.
Luckily, Brenden snapped me out of my momentary food coma and a year's worth of sugar intake wishes. It was date night after all, and would have REALLY regretted that food selection the next morning for a multitude of reasons. On the bright side, my dreams weren't crushed into shatters but more used inspiration for dinner and then gently brushed away.
With pizza on the brain, we began our search for dinner. Soon enough we found pizza roll-ups which looked delicious and met all of our requirements. As I mentioned we were both exhausted from a long and stressful week and these seemed like a quick fix. We grabbed some pizza dough and sauce from the store and made do with ingredients we had laying around for our toppings.
Because we were rolling the pizza dough up, it made it very easy for us to use different toppings and different variations of pizza because they were being cut into separate individual pieces. As you may know by now, this was perfect for Brenden and I with our opposing tastes. He got his meaty pepperoni filled pizza while I got my veggie filled caprese roll-up (not to say we didn't try each others...I know I ate like half of his). He also used a garlic white pizza sauce while I used a more traditional tomato sauce. In total we had four kinds of pizza roll-ups to sample. And of course we both had our own favorite - mine the tomato sauce with pepperoni and Brenden the white sauce with spinach. Yumm.
This recipe was pretty simple and extremely customizable. The recipe I have given you is very vague because, as you saw and read, we couldn't decide on toppings ourselves. So, choose a creation we made or create one of your own. Let me know if you discover anything great! Maybe a dessert roll-up, peanut butter and chocolate chips? There my mind goes again, back to those ever so tasty sweets.
Pizza Rollups
Recipe adapted from cinnamonspiceandeverythingnice.com
Ingredients
- 1 package Pillsbury pizza dough
- pizza sauce, to taste
- mozzarella cheese, to taste
- pizza toppings of your choice, to taste
- salt, pepper, oregano, basil, crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
- On a lightly flowered surface, unroll the pizza dough.
- Spread the sauce from edge to edge, leaving about an inch border on one side.
- Sprinkle with cheese.
- Place any toppings you wish to include on top of the cheese.
- Season with seasonings of your choice to taste.
- Roll the pastry up toward the one-inch border, keeping the roll as tight as possible.
- Use a sharp knife to cut the roll into quarters or eighths.
- Place each piece on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about 2 inches away from each other.
- Bake for 22-25 minutes.
- Remove from oven, serve, and enjoy.
