Category: Food

Ramen 1: Triple Chicken

  • December 13, 2020

I ate three different packet chicken ramen on three consecutive days. All were prepared the same way (boil water, add ramen then flavor when noodles cooked). Here’s my review of each.

Top Ramen (380 Calories, 14g fat, 1600 mg sodium)

I bought a pack of these months ago due to a Gudetama promotion but didn’t get around to trying any until this past week. The noodles are fatter than other ramens, but the flavor was light and didn’t taste anything like chicken soup. Not terrible for the price (about $0.25), and I’ll eat the ones I have but I won’t be buying them again.

Maruchan (370 Calories, 14g fat, 1520 mg sodium)

An old favorite of mine, this one didn’t disappoint. The noodles are thin and delicious, and the flavor is stronger and more chickeny than Top Ramen. Afterwards I felt satisfied and regretted I hadn’t been wearing my Maruchan t-shirt whilst eating. Overall a solid chicken ramen, especially for the low price ($0.16).

Sapporo Ichiban (460 Calories, 20g fat, 1810 mg sodium)

The undisputed winner of this comparison! The noodles seem identical to maruchan so the difference must be in the flavor packet. I’m guessing it’s the extra fat and sodium that makes this one better. Each mouthful is like a chicken injection into your soul, and this is a ramen you could eat over and over without ever getting tired of it. They cost more ($1 apiece) but are absolutely worth it!

This was a fun thing to do, but I wished I had more types to include. If I can get my mitts on any other types of plain chicken packet ramen I’ll do a follow up!

Toffees

  • November 21, 2020

A couple of weeks ago I remembered a home-made lolly from my youth called ‘toffees’. I recalled buying them at church and school fetes, but hadn’t had one for decades.

A quick google search later and KLS had found a recipe. It was time to try and recreate this sweet from my youth!

The ingredients are simple: sugar, water, vinegar and cream of tartar. The process of cooking isn’t too difficult either: just mix it together and cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes:

The above shows our first attempt. When it’s ready we poured it into cupcake cups:

And after adding a few sprinkles we were done:

Not bad for our first attempt are they? They tasted great but there was a problem: they were incredibly sticky! As in you could barely open your mouth when you bit one. To be honest, they were scary to eat!

A second issue was that they were impossible to get out of the cupcake cups, and eating one included a good mouthful of paper as well. 🙂

Kristin knew the cream of tartar was the culprit and less would result in a harder toffee. It was time for round two! This time she let the mix boil slightly longer until it turned golden, and then when we poured it we used silicon cups as well:

These were much more successful! Not as sticky with a better taste. The one in the top left was sublime since KLS topped it with salt! As a bonus they came out of the silicon mold perfectly:

Alas there was still one issue: they were too big! This made them difficult to eat since they were too hard to bite through and a bit too large in the mouth. It was time for further refinement…

A week later we had secured more sugar and a new set of smaller molds, and we tried again. Golden brown boil, smaller silicon molds, salt on top:

Finally, we had crafter perfection! These are astonishingly good and 100% the taste of my youth.

A great success! Even though they’re basically just sugar, they taste like salted caramels. Next time you visit, we’ll make you some 🙂

Apple Picking!

  • October 1, 2020

We went and picked apples last weekend.

It was super popular and people were walking out with armfuls of fresh apples. The trees were laden.

We picked so many apples we could never eat them all, and ended up giving half to friends.

What to do with so many apples? Make a tart of course!

We mixed sliced apples with sugar and cinnamon and put them in a crust we bought at the store. After baking for an hour it looked like this:

It was a little bitter, but delicious with ice cream:

We’ve still got too many apples left. I wish I could give you some 🙂