The Single Man's Guide To TV Dinners 252
yokimbo writes "The Food Network had a show about TV dinners and how they're prepared, their history, etc... But, what about the useful information, like how they taste? Ray Cole has your solution at The Single Man's Guide to TV Dinners. Although, I think he needs to visit Web Pages That Suck." (Of course, TV dinners don't scream out the way ramen does for improvement and improvisation.)
Ramen improvement begins at home (Score:5, Informative)
Over the years, I've gone from making ramen a meal to making it a carbohydrate base in the occasional meal. I use it similarly to a base of rice for my favorite stir-fry recipe.
Sliced squash and zuchinni, with eggplant, stir-fried with soy sauce and optional sesame seeds. It's a basic ingredient for several dishes. Use it atop ramen or rice. Add drained black beans and rice and roll it in a burrito.
Squash season is here. Yum.
You gotta WORK that ramen. Make it work for you.
Re:The amount of time guys waste on this stuff ... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly, repeat after me "Life is too short to eat crap". Anyone who can follow basic directions can learn to cook. Cooks Illustrated [cooksillustrated.com] was a huge help in this process for me.
Re:The amount of time guys waste on this stuff ... (Score:3, Informative)
Partial Mirror (Score:3, Informative)
Some images are missing, but all the text is there.
Sunny Dubey
The Ramen Recipe That Got Me Through Hard Times (Score:3, Informative)
Poor Man's Egg-Foo-Yung 1 packet ramen 1 1/2 cups of cheap frozen mixed veggies 1 egg Some water Put about a 1/2" of water in a frying pan and turn it on high. Once the water starts boiling throw the whole brick on top and reduce heat to medium and let it cook. Turn it occasionally so it sucks up all the water evenly. When the pan getting close to dry but the noodles are still a bit firm but soft, dump in the frozen veggies (you can put in half a seasoning packet and/or a tsp. sesame oil for flavor at this point) and stir cooking off the water from the frozen veggies. Once they appear thawed, dump in a scrambled egg adding salt and pepper for taste. Let this cook either stirring it up or flipping it omlette style for a filling but cheap entree.
*Bonus tip, adding a bit of milk to the crambled egg (or two) makes it fluff up nicely. You might have to experiment wtih the water amounts a bit... I kinda freestyle my cooking without any measurements.
Best use of "tv dinner" by a politician (Score:3, Informative)
Mr Chalabi argued that "the IGC is the forces that opposed Saddam Husain and, allied with the US, overthrew him. Now the US wants to overthrow us?"
To which another - and more realistic - IGC member, cleric Ghazi al-Yawar replied: "They think they are entitled to a role because they believe they overthrew Saddam Husain. It was the US that overthrew Saddam while we were eating TV dinners."
so apparently the term TV dinner is not only in use its internationally in use. Plus its damn funny in this inconcrous use.
Travels Through Asia (Score:3, Informative)
Unfortunatly some Japanese ramen tends towards the $3 soup that eats like a meal mark which is so much crap.
It's important that ramen coniseurs get their hands on some Shin-Ramen comming out of Korea as it is definitly a staple.
Re:microwaved dinners (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven [wikipedia.org]
Re:Travels Through Asia (Score:2, Informative)
Damn, I am totally jonesing for some decent Korean food-- Damn you, San Antonio!
Re:Actually, a pretty good way to lose weight (Score:3, Informative)
Instead, eat large quantities of low-calorie food.
The answer, of course, is vegetables! You can eat two whole lettuces at one sitting and consume only 40 calories! The same goes for cucumber, celery, peppers, spring onions, carrots, tomatos (not too many) and so on.
So make huge salads each day and munch on that. You will not go hungry, and you will be able to eat something fattening like a (little) cheese and bread supper and still be in calorie defecit.
Try Quorn cold-meat imitations. They are tasty and fairly low calory too. The "faux-turkey" slices are particlarly good, at around 50 calories a 4-slice portion.
Things to watch:
A glass of fruit juice can be around 100 calories. I used to drink a whole carton a day thinking it had only a few calories - until I read the label.
Yogurt - healthy food? Again, around a 100 calories for a LOW FAT yogurt. I used to eat four a day thinking I was helping myself lose weight. Read the label!
Egg drop soup (Score:3, Informative)
If you want egg drop soup bring back to a near boil and stir in one raw egg making sure it gets cooked properly. What I do is actually mix the egg and some lemon juice together (shake in a small closed jar is easiest technique) and stir that into headed soup mixture. You get a creamier soup than the regular egg drop soup. Don't overheat though.
Re:Do you know how this stuff is made? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Most Important Single Guy Food Tip (Score:4, Informative)
Capsaicin in concentrated form is extremely powerful, and is being tested in medical science as a relief for chronic pain by applying to the area that hurts and it will knock out the receptors on the skin for about 2 weeks.
So imagine what would happen if that got on your 'delicate machinery'.
Re:The amount of time guys waste on this stuff ... (Score:4, Informative)
TV dinners are a false economy.
Expenses? Look up the ingredients in a standard pre-prepared meal, then do the math to see what fresh ingredients would have cost you. I guarantee you will find that you come out 10 to 50% cheaper.
Washing up? I suspect you're not eating with your fingers, so you have to wash up after a pre-prepared dinner as well. Let's be charitable and say you eat the stuff from its packaging. You have now saved the time in washing up 2 plates and 3 pans (about what you need for a 2 person dinner). Trust me, that's about 1 minute of washing up and toweling off.
About the only thing I can say against buying fresh is that fresh ingredients come in bulk (e.g. a single head of lettuce will give 4-6 servings), and therefore you will generally have to buy for several days at once. That can be solved with a good freezer, but it is a chore.
I found out myself that cooking with fresh ingredients is an enormous saving. I have more money to spend even though I generally have to spend about 15 minutes on a meal, and I eat like a king.
Also, although I am not a health nut, I do find that I feel better after several days of fresh food. It appears that the methods of conservation do destroy nutrient value, to say nothing of additives.
Lastly, pre-prepared food is often salted heavily. A month of eating fresh will cure you of your salt habit, and you'll suddenly find your taste has improved, you're now able to discriminate more flavours, and whenever you do use salt you will find that in moderation it tends to strengthen other flavours, instead of obliterating them, making for a richer experience.
So do yourself a favour, try eating fresh for a month. You will not go back except occasionally.
MartRe:Ramen improvement begins at home (Score:2, Informative)
And "partially hydrogenated vegetable oil" is just about the worst form of fat you can stick in your mouth. That's code for "lots of saturated and trans fats that will give you heart disease". So even if you're being good and cooking the veggies in canola or olive oil, that awful grease the noodles were fried in is still going to clog up your arteries.
Re:Needs an O'Reilly book (Score:1, Informative)