Easy, inexpensive mabo

Yep, you are looking at the food blog named mmm-yoso!!!  Today, Cathy is ‘cooking’ a meal for two for less than $5.  It must be Friday.

Hi again.  Time to make some good food easily. OK, you could call the process lazy.  It still ends up being tasty and won’t cost you much money.  

These three ‘ingredients’ are staples in my home.  The House brand mabo tofu sauce is regularly priced at $2.49 at 99Ranch Market.  Tofu can be on sale for as little as 79¢ and fresh thin egg noodles are at most $1.50 in the refrigerated section.  You’ll only use 1/2 the package of tofu and noodles.  You’ll also need one small handful (a little less than 1/2 pound) of ground pork, which is $1.69/lb at 99Ranch.

Brown the pork, don’t drain off the grease.

Add 1/2 package of cubed tofu and brown it with the meat and grease.  This gives the tofu some flavor.

The sauce is in a tightly sealed foil packet (a good thing to keep in the earthquake kit, BTW) and can just be cut open and poured over all and heated through.  Set aside.

In the meantime, you should be bringing some water to a rolling boil.  Drop the thin egg noodles into the boiling water for about 20 seconds.  Rinse in cold water.

{I know this goes against what I told you about wheat and flour pasta, which you put into salted water and don’t rinse.  This is a fresh egg noodle.  Different rules.}

Serve the warm sauce over the cooled noodles.

Viola!