In relation to cheap eats, I had made teriyaki chicken out of thighs last week, and fried rice, and tried to figure out what to do with the leftover vegetables and what have you. I made potstickers to go along with it as kind of an appetizer, just the frozen ones from trader Joe's and they're actually really good.
The wife came home from the store with some packets of instant ramen, nothing special.
Decided to make a dashi, and I use that very loosely, I'm sure our resident Oriental would have a heart attack, but it was chilly out and she said hey I'd like a soup or something. Used some mushroom powder umami seasoning blend, too.
Made a broth with a little bit of better than bullion, soy, togarashi, nori, sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Had some celery and shallot that I needed to use up, so into the pot. Had a couple of zucchini floating around, and a half a head of cabbage, a crown if broccoli, and maybe a half a pound of mushrooms. Dumped a couple of the packs of the ramen seasoning into the broth. And then shaved some fresh cabbage just to get one on top so it was super crunchy. Put the ramen in, and then took the leftover potstickers and through those in with the diced up teriyaki chicken. Little fresh green onion, and serve.
We ate on it from Sunday of last week to Thursday, just getting a little bit more cheap ramen for the noodles, and adding one or two other zucchini, etc. I'm not a big soup person but it was utterly delicious and if you're really kind of break it down, as long as you've got the Staples like soy, togarashi, ginger or whatever, you can make a huge pot and it's dirt cheap. Don't even have to necessarily have a protein but cheap chicken thighs work perfect. I never made it before but it's definitely going into the rotation, especially if I want to just clear out vegetables or proteins that we have from previous meals, that way nothing gets wasted.