On the subject of Ramen

I wanna go to the Raumen museum/food amusement park in Yokohama, Japan

http://www.raumen.co.jp/ramen/

http://www.bento.com/phgal3.html

Eventually

The yumminess has taken over my life!

Mmmm....

So in case you're a total stranger, who doesn't actually know me (or worse, a person who does know me, and yet manages to miss major, blatant details about my life) let it be known that I. Love. Ramen! Always and forever, lol-kissy face-xoxo-bff4lyfe... you get the picture.

So anyway, a combination of poverty and laziness has resulted in me having and using an abundance of fresh produce in my meals as of late (go ahead and make sense of that one). This led to the chance creation of my favorite ramen dish of the moment! Its so tasty, I just crave it all the time lately. I fill my usual go to brand of Shin Ramyun instant noodles, with a ton of fresh tasty and it fills me up for hours (well, maybe just 2 or 3, but its satisfying feeling lasts beyond that). Also, this particular brand of ramen is pretty spicy (esp if you don't make your ramen soupy), but this combination turns the heat of the spice into a hearty richness. It's just so good! I actually made this dish twice today. If i were thinking ahead, I would have taken a picture of it, but for now a recipe will have to do.

So here's how to make it =3

You will need:

• one pack of Shin Ramyun instant noodles
• 1 quarter to 1 third of a green bell pepper
• 1 quarter to 1 third of a red bell pepper
• 1 handful of fresh spinach leaves (if you actually like spinach, take this literally as possible, your hand should be overflowing with spinach, otherwise it'll disappear while boiling...but then again, I have small hands so it might just be a personal problem)
• 1 freakishly huge garlic clove, or 1.5-2 regular cloves
• 2 or 3 shakes of onion powder
• 1 fairly small jalapeño pepper (considering that this particular brand of ramen is already spicy on its own, this is optional)

So I pretty much cook 90% of the dishes I make in this one 22cm "pressure cooker" that I got in Chinatown way back - basically it's a medium sized pot, wider than it is deep. I suggest making this dish in an equivalent sized thing, with a lid.

Directions:

1. Chop garlic cloves into whatever size pleases you (I like wide, thin strips or big chunks, but I just love my garlic)
2. Cut bell peppers (and jalapeño, for the daring) into thin, short strips
3. Fill the bowl you're gonna eat out of about 3/4 of the way full. Then pour half of that into your pot and bring it to a boil. This should be enough water to cover the bottom of the pot with less than an inch of water. **Random factoid - I cook on high heat the entire time, unless other noted. I'm inpatient like that**
4. Once boiling, add the peppers and garlic. While that's boiling, rinse your spinach and toss it it in the pot too.
5. Shake in the onion powder and cover with lid
6. As soon as the spinach starts to cook down (I have a clear lid, so i can see these things without taking it off. If you don't, just wait about 45 seconds), add the dry noodles and the rest of the water. Replace lid.
7. Cook for about 3-4 mins, stirring occasionally
8. When done, transfer soup into your bowl, stir in the seasoning and dried veggies* from the ramen pack, break out the chopsticks, and enjoy!

*Technically, you can add these to the pot while boiling the noodles. I just don't.

Enjoy!

Meow...it was a slow day here in wanderland...

But thankfuly it wasn't too bright or too hot. Anyway, I spend a great deal of time thinking about what I wanted to blog about today (in other words I was procrastinating), but I have nothing of interest to expound upon. So, here are some randoms:

• http://www.nitrome.com/games/yinyang/ - this mildly trippy game I came across today while brushing up on my taijitu knowledge.

• I'd fallen off for a while, but nowdays I have a bit more time to catch up on some anime series I'd fallen behind on, as well as check out a few new ones. Currently I'm watching Kuroshitsiji, Mitsudomoe, Baccano, High School of the Dead, Dance in the Vampire Bund. Eventually, I will start watching Uraboku, but I fell asleep on the first episode (not necessarily a judgement) and haven't given it another chance. Anyway, check em out

• I feel so content today and I feel that is due in no small part to wearing my favorite pair of boxers today. They're navy blue with red and white accents, a large number 13 and the word "Lucky" printed on the side of the left leg in an old school varsity print. Don't get me wrong, I L.O.V.E. wearing cute panties, but sometimes boxers are just the bee's knees...especially when they're your 'lucky' pair. Plus, I'm not sure why, but I have a certain affection for Lucky Brand Jean Co. (tho these boxers are pretty much the only thing i own from the company)

• I've commissioned a pretty talented artist (also lover) to design a background for me, so soon the page will have a more personal theme that will hopefully be more befitting this window into wanderland

Alas, I need to stop procrastinating now. A scientist's work is never done (especially when that scientist has a very short attention span and a large workload). I must attend to it. Then again, banana blackberry oatmeal sounds really tasty right now...

Until next time!

So, i kinda sorta forgot this blog existed...

Sorry imaginary friends, it [probably] won't happen again [...maybe].

Quick catch up: I am back in the US. Specifically, I'm back in Chicago (I went home to D.C. for a while too, but since I forgot your existence, o blog of mine, I don't have any real updates from that). I still have a metric ish-ton of photos from the remainder of my trip in Israel, plus a story from my night in Istanbul (if i choose to actually tell it). Those updates will come slowly but surely. Fret not fuzzy ones.

In the meantime, I'm considering taking this blog in a slightly different direction. Since I currently have no super awesome fun time travel plans in the near future, I won't have too many exotic stories to regale you with. So what am I gonna talk about? Well I have a number of passions, and had a hard time choosing one to focus on. There's travel, but like I said, I'm ...domestic (what an unpleasant notion) and fairly stationary for quite a while into the foreseeable future, leaving not too much to really get into. Then there's fashion, which I would love[!] to do, but since I'm not an avid designer follower, and I'm learning to budget (i.e. avoiding stores like the plague to keep from shopping myself broke). Hair was also an option - If you know me in the real world, you know that I'm OBSESSED, and have a nearly rehab worthy addiction to fake hair - but since I'm still pretty new to the natural hair thang, and there are a million bloggers doing better than I ever could...nah, I'll just let them keep the wheel. Then there's books, dance, anime, music, etc...

So what did I chose? After much deliberation, I decided to make this blog a repository for my random thoughts and whims (in other words, I chose all of the above). Travel posts will include excursions I take and maybe bits about my favorite hang out spots within my current city, as well as maybe blurbs about where else in the world I'd like to travel and why. Fashion posts will basically be me showing off my wardrobe, pictures of outfits on days I think I look especially cute (or am especially bored), whines about what I what and or rants about what I can't stand (expect to hear a lot about my reluctant love/hate of jeggings), and maybe a few posts on models whose careers I'm stalking. And in some random crap here and there, and top it all off with tons of stuff about Me!!! (yes, when referring to me one must capitalize the first letter of the pronoun and follow it with three (3) exclamation points). Because really, even when talking about something else, a narcissistic bunni is always talking about herself.

Until next time,