My Cost-effectively Pathetic Early Cooking

When I start set foot in the country and settled in my first little apartment, I was pretty lost. I was my first time living by myself, and I was staying in a country where I couldn't really speak the country. I didn't really know anyone here, and I hardly knew where I was. Most importantly, I wasn't sure about how much money I would be making and how much I would be saving. As a result, I was extremely cautious about everything, including how I spent money.

Looking back now, I used to eat some pretty pathetic meals. For one, I was trying to save money so I didn't eat out much, and for another, I wanted to experience real local ingredients, stuff from supermarkets that every family would get and cook at home.

With my extremely limited knowledge of cooking, here are some "food" I "cooked":

"Miso Soup"

Hey, I didn't really drink miso soup back in Canada, so who was I to know that miso soup had actual ingredients? I bought a pack of miso paste, boiled it with water, and boom! Miso soup. Eventually, I began experimenting miso with tofu on days that I was feeling adventurous. Each bowl probably cost me 10 yen, if even!

"Noodles at home"

Cooking noodles at home was great. I could buy a package of noodles for 200 yen, which came with 2-3 noodles. I boiled it up, made the soup, and it was done and ready! Compared to the 750 yen bowls out there, I was having noodles for 10% of the cost! The only thing was that I had no pork, vegetables, or any other toppings...

"Korokke and furikake"

Eventually, I bought some rice to cook at home and I would go to the supermarket's deli for some Japanese style fried food. My favourite was getting a korokke to put on rice, but of course it didn't give enough flavour, so furikake for the rescue... each meal was about 70 yen each, and yes, that is in fact miso soup in a mug.

It is quite funny to look back at my humble beginnings. DId you start off like me too? Let me know!