Ja Jang Myun

Today I was especially excited to make dinner for a few reasons:

• I didn't eat dinner yesterday.
• I had time to make dinner.
• The last time I made Ja Jang Myun was about a year ago.

The recipe I used for my starting point was from Sunny-side Up Recipes:  http://www.sunnysideuprecipes.com/2010/02/ja-jang-myun.html

[On a side note, I also decided to start following her blog because of her tagline:  Healthy, Simple, and Budget-friendly Recipes for People With Busy Lives.  And I thought, "That's me!"  I like eating healthy and I love saving money :)]

What started as following a simple recipe actually evolved into making things up as I went.  Here are the modifications I made:

• I don't especially like potatoes, so I added carrots with the zucchini.
• I didn't follow the instructions regarding when to add ingredients, so I ended up adding the carrots, zucchini, and onions all at once and I think it turned out fine.
• I used ground turkey (or it may have been ground pork, sometimes it's hard to tell once things get put into the abyss formerly known as our freezer).
• I didn't have any of the JaJang sauce, but I remember that my mom had told me to put 1 part Soy Bean Sauce:1 part Sweet Flour Sauce.  Since I also had hot bean sauce, what I ended up using for the sauce was about 2 heaping tablespoons of Sweet Flour Sauce, 2 heaping tablespoons of bean paste and 1 heaping teaspoon of hot bean sauce (adds a little kick).  And using these sauces definitely infuses more Chinese flavor.

What I liked about it:

• The zucchini and the carrots were at the perfect level of crispness.  Not too raw and not very mushy.  I loved it.  Also, I used whole, not baby carrots.  They are so much sweeter than baby carrots.
• I used "fresh" noodles.  (They were fresh, not dried, noodles at some point.  I had put them in a freezer for an opportune time like today.)
• All in all, it took me about 40 minutes to cook, while washing dishes along the way.  Not bad, right?

Changes I would make for next time:

• Less hot bean sauce
• Add scallions towards the end

Recently, I've been thinking more about making more vegetarian dishes and maybe implementing a meatless Monday, just to be healthier.  This recipe could most likely be made easily into a vegetarian dish using tofu instead of pork.  I'll have to try it sometime.