Yakisoba - Easy Dinner for Less Than $10 a Meal

We're big on finding cost-effective meals that everyone likes - which is tough, when everyone has very different food preferences! One of the meals we've come to use as a staple is Yakisoba. Noodles, veggies, meat, and sauce - all pretty much customizable to your specific tastes.

Here's our standard ingredient list:

• Yakisoba noodles (Costco has a 2-meal pack in the cheese area for about $5.50)
• Chicken thighs (again at Costco for about $2.20/lb) or other meat - leftover is fine
• Carrots (4-5)
• Cabbage (1/2 a head)
• Onion (1)
• Yakisoba sauce: can be teriyaki sauce, stir fry sauce, or - my favorite - Yoshida's Original Sweet and Savory Sauce (also available at Costco; I don't recall the price, but a container lasts us for several many meals)
• A LARGE wok or frying pan and a LARGE bowl!

You can use whatever meats and vegetables you like, cut up however you like. We often use sliced bell peppers, broccoli, celery - you name it, it's game! Basically, the process is such:

• Prepare meat, tofu or seafood. I typically use whatever I have leftover or bake some chicken thighs ahead of time, then cube and set to marinate in a small amount of teriyaki sauce. 
• Stir-fry your vegetables. Feel free to use seasonings or not (I typically add garlic and ginger to the oil before adding veggies). Set aside in a large bowl once cooked to crisp tenderness.
• Stir-fry the meat to heat through (or cook if starting from raw). Add to veggies in bowl and mix until evenly distributed.
• Cook yakisoba noodles according to directions, adding a small amount of your chosen sauce for flavor as it cooks.
• Once noodles are cooked or heated through, add the veggie and meat mixture in, turn heat down to low, and cook just until everything is warmed through.

... That's it! With a reasonable amount of veggies and meat added, this feeds 4 growing children and 2 adults fairly well, though typically without any leftovers. If you do have leftovers, I highly recommend picking up some hoagie buns and making Yakisoba Sandwiches. It sounds freakishly bizarre, but trust me (and our teenage daugher) - they are REALLY good for lunch the next day.

Have fun, and enjoy!!  :D

Cute and (sort of) Healthy Bento Treats!

Alright. Because I seem to be lacking in creativity and free time this week, here is a link to a nifty little treat that I found for your bento! Super cute, super easy, and - as an added bonus - even mostly healthy! And hey, strawberries are high in Vitamin C. Very important for boosting the immune system this time of year. ;)

So, go check out these Delectable, Simple, and Adorable Santa Hats!

Meat Buns - Bento or Mennonite, these are awesome.

In nearly all of the anime shows our family watches, bento lunches are a huge part of the interaction between characters. One of the most intriguing foods to me (besides yakisoba sandwiches, which I have yet to try) were the meat buns - so I went ahead and made them for dinner last night! Granted, the recipe was from a Mennonite blog and the "real" name for them is "Meat Perishky", but still.

These are from the original blogger's page, but mine really did turn out like this!

I used the dough recipe from the site and BBQ pulled pork for the filling, and out of the 5 dozen or so buns the recipe made, there were maybe a dozen and a half left this morning! ALL of the kids - and my husband - loved them, which is essentially unheard of. Most of us had them for breakfast this morning as well, and took them in our lunches, too - which is kind of the point, right?  :)  A bit time-consuming but VERY easy to do, and we are looking forward to experimenting with fillings (think homemade Hot Pockets). Even better - they freeze beautifully!

You can find the recipe at http://www.mennonitegirlscancook.ca/2008/06/meat-buns.html.

B is for.... BENTO!!

... We watch anime at our house. A LOT of anime. Not the whole "fighting robots" or Pokemon stuff; generally unique, interesting, fun and well-thought-out shows that just happen to be animated! Well... okay, some of it's a little weird - like the zombie living with a necromancer and a vampire ninja and a weird magical girl who carries a pink chainsaw and... you get the point. ;)

One of the common themes in many of the anime shows we watch is a thing called "Bento". Bento is apparently what everyone in Japan eats for lunch. Unless they're eating Yakisoba sandwiches, of course (which are actually weird but quite good). Bento can be any of a number of things, ranging from simple finger foods (think Lunchables) to crazy Hello Kitty shaped rice balls (called "onigiri") with cheese and fruit cutout shapes. Seriously. Do a Google image search for "Bento" and see what comes up!

I have no idea how they create half the stuff they do - but I want to learn!! After digging for a bit, I've discovered shaped rice molds and cutout punches for seaweed (to make faces and such), a myriad of different bento boxes (which are really freaking cool) and TONS of other accessories. No more boring lunches for my kids! LOL

Admittedly, I'm a bit concerned about the amount of time it could possibly take to put something like this together:

... But doesn't that make lunch seem a little more entertaining?? And besides, if I'm going to take up a hobby, why not make it something sort of useful?! Now, if only I could find a nanny and housekeeper willing to work in exchange for room and Bento... :)