June 28th, 2025
As I have mentioned in prior comments, Prison food is a pretty up and down affair. On the weekend however, the direction tends to be only down. As a result, I usually make my own meals on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. One early hack I got from another inmate was that Skippy creamy peanut butter mixed with Huy Fong Garlic and Chili sauce makes a reasonable Asian peanut sauce. I tried this and it was indeed quite good. I have experimented and built on the initial suggestion since then, and come up with this recipe:
Ingredients:
2 pack low sodium Maruchan Ramen
2 tbsp Skippy creamy peanut butter
2 tbsp Huy Fong Garlic and Chili Sauce
1 ginger spice tea bag (this is the non tea ‘herbal’ type. Do not use actual tea as a substitute)
1 tsp lime juice (if you can get it at commissary)
1/2 sachet equal (optional)
1 1/2 ounce roughly crushed salted peanuts
To Make:
Break up the noodles into a microwave container with lid. Empty 1 flavoring packet. Save the other for a rainy day (waste not want not in prison). Add 190 degree water from hot water dispenser until covering noodles. Add tea bag, cover. Crush peanuts roughly while waiting for noodles. Uncover Noodles after 3 minutes. Remove tea bag and re-cover). After 2 more minutes, open lid of bowl and drain water until only a few tablespoons remain. Uncover bowl, add peanut butter, chili sauce and stir together until peanut butter is fully infused into bowl and it has a sauce like consistency. You can also stir in the equal here if you want it a bit sweeter. It does make the sauce more pad-thai like, but withouth fish sauce, I find it a bit to cloying). Finally, add the crushed peanuts on top in an even layer and sprinkle on the lime juice.
Voila!
You can add various meats to this mix. I added spam slices today in liu of ham, but other items can substitute as well. Obviously, if you make this at home, you can upgrade all the ingredients and include things like kafir limes, fish sauce, and galangal. What I will take away from this recipe is that the 3 core items, noodles, peanut butter, and chili sauce, can make such a simple meal something that one can actually look forward to eating.
