A Little Ramen and Another Letter

With my oldest child in college, and my source of income on hiatus, I've been pinching pennies everywhere I possibly can.  I often buy a pound of ground beef and divide it into four, and use it in four different meals.  Mac and cheese is my base for a LOT of casseroles.  I'm constantly on the lookout for inexpensive recipes, as well.

My family and I have made the following recipe for years. I'm sure I got it on the internet somewhere, but I would be hard pressed to tell you the original source.  I just now found three or four locations for nearly identical recipes. 

Anyway, in my never-ending endeavor to stretch my grocery dollars so I can bring my daughter home for Christmas, or send her a little cash (or pay one of our medical bills!), I discovered that I could feed my family of three for only $2.64!  When my older daughter was home, I used to serve this dish to all of us, but would add something else like a salad.  With just the three of us, we don't need anything extra.  There is plenty of food, and it has starch, vegetables and protein.  If I were going to add something, maybe a cut-up banana for dessert.

Ingredients:
2-3 oz.  packages of Oriental Ramen Noodles (20 cents ea.)
1/4 lb. ground beef ($1.15)
Bag of veggies ($1.09)
2.5 C water
1/4 tsp. ground ginger

Directions:

Boil the water in a large sauce pan.

Crush the ramen noodles with a can or rolling pin, etc., before opening. Remove the seasoning packets and dump the noodles from both packages into the boiling water. Cook for 3 minutes.

Turn the heat down on the noodles a little and add your bag of frozen veggies, one seasoning packet and 1/4 tsp of ground ginger. (If you do not have ginger on-hand, it will also be tasty without it.)

In a skillet, brown the ground beef and add the contents of the other seasoning packet.  When the beef is done, add it to the noodle mixture.

Serve.

Optional:  

I have changed this recipe up, depending on ingredients on-hand, by adding any or all of the following:  peanuts, water chestnuts, pea pods.  While my version of this recipe calls for 1/4 lb. of ground beef, if you have more on hand or are not needing to pinch as many pennies as I, go ahead and use more beef.  The rest of the recipe will remain the same.

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I got a nice little text from my college daughter today.  It simply said, "I got my mail today!"  I asked, "Brown or green?" She replied, "Both!!"  Translated that means that she got both the fall mail art envelope I shared the other day and the green one I will share now.  I would like to think she did not get both today as I sent them nearly a week apart.

Closeup of the "A".  The stamp image is from Stamper's Anonymous.

The pink flourish outline was made using Sepia Accents from Ranger.

Closeup of the flower on the back.  The flower image is from Northwoods.

Enjoy this wonderful day!

Please share my blog with your friends and pin my images to your Pinterest boards.  Thanks!

~Cyndi