Frugal Noodle Dinner

With all this money saving going on and sometimes buying food that we don't normally eat, I'm being forced to experiment. Not an easy thing to do in a houseful of picky eaters! I have had an over abundance of ramen noodles for a few weeks now. We've been slowly whittling away at the stash one package at a time for lunch, but I needed to put a dent in this soon!

In my daily jaunts online, reading obscure and relatively unknown (well unknown to me!) blogs, I came across The Coupon Goddess. Yeah the one I posted about the other day. Well in addition to her coupon posts, Melanie also posts some great recipes. Remind you of anyone else...**clears throat**..anyway she had this great recipe posted and it looked yummy! Yes!! Solving two problems: feeding the family and making room in my pantry! Oh and my final cost was $4.50 to feed six people (and a dog!), so that's 75 cents a serving!

Above is what Melanie at The Coupon Goddess made. *Note to self: Go buy some batteries for your camera!Of course mine didn't look this pretty, but you get the idea! It was absolutely delicious! You can check out her recipe here. I'm including my tweaked version of this recipe, because Rule #1 of being frugal..use what you have on hand!

Frugal Noodles


4 packs ramen noodles (chicken or beef), reserve two packets of seasoning
1 lb. chicken or beef, cooked and chopped
2 T. olive oil
1 package frozen snow peas
1 package frozen broccoli crowns
1 bell pepper, sliced in strips
1 small onion, sliced in strips
1 T. garlic, minced
1 tsp. ginger powder
1/2 c. soy sauce
pinch white sugar
1 T. rice vinegar
black pepper

Heat olive oil in LARGE pot. Saute garlic for a minute in hot oil before adding vegetables and meat. While meat and veggies are heating, mix together 2 seasoning packets, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, pepper, garlic and ginger. Drizzle some of the sauce over the top. You can either boil all the noodles together or use the containers provided. (The noodles I had came in containers you can cook the noodles in the microwave...why dirty another pan?)Saute until vegetables are semi-tender. Add the cooked noodles and pour the rest of the sauce over all. I know it doesn't look like much sauce but trust me! Stir; cook about 5 minutes.

Serves 6