Ramen It Is

I bought some dried fava beans at Whole Foods on my last trip, and yesterday I was craving falafel. I am once again out of garbanzo beans, so I decided I would use fava beans instead. Apparently they use fava beans for falafel in Egypt. I was feeling excited to want to cook, and also happy that I was craving food. I must have gotten an old batch of beans or something because these things never cooked! I soaked them for several hours, and then boiled them for well over three hours and they were still hard as before any soaking or cooking. I have only cooked dried fava beans once before, and I know the cooking time was nowhere near three hours. I didn't have any other beans on hand besides lentils, so I had to scrap the falafel plan. I haven't done much food shopping this past week, and it shows. Luckily for me I found this package of Ramen that I picked up somewhere. A steaming bowl of noodles was what I needed after the fava debacle.

I don't remember where I got these, but I know I've seen them around. I might have gotten these at Target. I don't know if all of their flavors are vegan, but this Asian vegetable, along with a seaweed flavor are vegan. I liked these a lot. I prefer these over the Lotus brand. Lotus uses rice noodles, and Koyo uses wheat so I guess it's what noodle you prefer. I love that there are several brands of healthy, vegan ramen available. The ingredients aren't scary, just lots of different vegetable powders and other seasonings. I added some shredded carrot, cilantro and green onion and it was a pretty good back-up dinner.

I will be doing some shopping today or tomorrow and hopefully have some fun things to show. This past week reminded me of the importance of having some essentials stocked in your cupboards. I couldn't handle being in a store for more than five or ten minutes last week, so luckily having rice, beans and spices stocked up really came in handy.
I still feel a little at a loss for words. I feel like yesterday and today's posts are a little awkward. I'm trying to make myself ease back into my daily routines because unfortunately the world doesn't stop for you when you're hurting. Tomorrow I will be starting my meditation challenge again, and hopefully get inspired in the kitchen. I used to do a lot more cooking using recipes I made in my head, and it just seems like for the past year or so I've been following recipes from the webz or a cookbook, or just sticking to simple basic stuff. I want to start making more of my own recipes. I enjoy the creativity of a little of this and a pinch of that turning into something really tasty. Hopefully now that I have a blog I will be better about writing things down. In the past I've made some really good stuff that I've never been able to recreate! I've got some new notebooks waiting to be filled. Anyway, Happy Tuesday!