Another great post from Juli of Pandemonium Noshery. Juli loves interesting and delicious food around the world what better way for a food lover to get excited about Christmas than with unique foods? She decided to share how she made her original advent calendar, with ramen. If you are looking for another way to package this one, feel free to use this idea, perhaps hanging up each of these wrapped packages on a string. And for a little history behind advent calendars, you might find this an interesting read.
So this post is a little bit different than a recipe, It’s an idea, but don’t worry, it’s still food related. So it started when I was out window shopping with the kids and saw a ramen advent calendar. I picked it up immediately and was thrilled, I thought it was the score of the season. Only to have my hopes dashed. For starters, it was $40 which works out to around $3.33 per package which is a bit steep for ramen. And then I looked at the back and realized that it wasn’t 12 different ramen to try. There were 12 packages, but there were 4 of each, so really only three different ones.
Another fun thing to do with this general idea is it makes great birthday presents or white elephant gifts that are creative and a little bit outside the box. For those options you could do as many or as few as you wanted, just to give a fun gift that is unique.
So DIY it was. I decided that I really could do something way more interesting, with more variety, at a much lower cost. Most ramen if you walk into any Asian market is between $0.60 to $1.50 per pack. And with buying them myself I was able to customize the flavors. I also got one I’m really excited to have in my calendar that was kinda a random find, and might not be so easily accessible. But if you have any foreign markets in your area I suggest checking, you never know what treasure you will find. For mine, I went into a Nigerian market and got a goat pepper stew ramen. They have several other fun-looking ones, like crawfish stew, but the goat was the one I went with.
From there it’s strictly personal preference. You can also look for ones from all the same area, like all Japanese ones, or all Korean packages. Or if you are like me and wish you could explore more, you can switch it up and grab some from all over. For mine, I went with:
- Spicy Carbonara
- Kimchi
- Beef and Pickled Mustard Greens
- Curry Chicken
- Nigerian Goat Pepper Soup
- Duck Ramen
- Pancit Canton
- Spicy Korean Red Noodles
- Indonesian Stir Fry Noodles
- Tonkatsu Ramen
- Beef pho
- Penang White Curry
From there you need to package them up to be slightly obscured if you are going for the advent look. I wrapped mine in strips of wrapping paper. I didn’t go for a full wrap, with the ends sealed as well, just one strip around and I used a marker to write the number on the paper. Either style of wrapping works, but since I was making quite a few of them I went with the easiest option.
And there you have it.
My total cost for just the ramen, not including the wrapping paper and tape, was $11.56 before tax. Much cheaper than the store-bought version and waaaayyy more interesting.
What was the most interesting advent calendar you've seen? Have you made your own or do you buy one? What type do you buy or make? And what was the most interesting type of ramen you've ever seen or tasted?