I wonder if there's a book (or has been a Serious Eats article) about alternative uses for products. Maybe this is a stupid idea.. I'm not totally sure since I only thought of a few so far.

For example I was eating lunch. I bought a bunch of Maruchan Yakisoba Taco beef. They're 80 cents each and make a good, cheap lunch at work. I'm questioning weather it's a cheap lunch as I keep getting the broth splashed on my shirts, but that's another story.

The taco beef is my favorite.. the broth that's left over is very spicy and tasty. It got me thinking of what I could do with just the seasoning packet.

I made hamburgers! I took some of the packet and combined it with a little water. I mix that with ground beef and fry in the pan. Awesome tasting burgers.. so juicy from the water.. so spicy and flavorful from the seasoning.

There's also a recipe here for Ramen Vegetable Pancakes that looks good: http://www.azcentral.com/style/hfe/food/recipes/articles/2011/02/25/20110225ramen-vegetable-pancakes.html

Now, I was in the Filipino store and picked up some mama Sita's Pang Gisa: http://www.msita.com/images/mixes_panggisa.jpg

It's a little packet of seasoning you use to saute with vegetables. I thought it would go excellent in some homemade potato soup I made. It was.