Most salads contain multiple vegetables and leafy greens like lettuce, tomatoe, and onion. The problem with some of these ingredients is they go back fairly quickly, especially lettuce, which becomes slimy, discolored, and smells. Grape tomatoes tend to wrinkle and look unappetizing. One vegetable, however, seems to stay and look fresh for about 2 weeks – cucumbers. Cucumbers are also high in water content, which can help you feel full and eat less. They are also low in carbohydrates and sugar, and have a low glycemic index (GI). This means that cucumbers don’t cause a rapid increase in blood sugar. They can be a good snack for people who want to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
If you’re making a burger and your meat is not frozen, then you can stick a thermometer in your patty and let the thermometer beep when the meat is at your desired temperature. The problem with this is you may have to flip the burger one or more times and, if your patty is thin or not dense, it may be difficult getting the thermometer probe in the center and staying there. If your patty is frozen, like it is at many stores that sell packages of burger patties, then you can’t stick a thermometer in it.
Frozen burger patties may not taste the best, but they are still good. Since they’re frozen, they will last long as well. To simplify the cooking process, I use the T-fal Optigrill. It grills both sides and has a drip tray to catch all fatty juices.
Here’s how to cook a frozen beef patty in the simplest way possible.
Press the power button to turn on the Optigrill
Press the snowflake button because your patties are frozen
Press the burger button since we’re making a burger. The Optigrill will heat up as indicated by the blue light. This takes about 5 minutes.
When the Optigrill beeps, it’s done heating up. Open the lid and place your patties.
The Optigrill will beep and change color every time the meat reaches a doneness level.
When the Optigrill has reached your desired doneness based on the color of the doneness cycle, remove your patties. In my experience, it takes about 7 minutes to get to medium-well.
For the buns, Artesano Bakery Buns are pretty good. Don’t toast these buns. They taste good as is at room temperature.
One thing I really dislike when cooking is having to occasionally stir the food. This is the case with fried rice, soups, and stir-fried vegetables. Fortunately, the Koreans feel the same way. A company called LAMPCOOK with the slogan “Innovative Cooking” sells this (overpriced) automatic pot stirrer on Amazon for $155. I normally would spend that much on a pot, but like I said, I really dislike manually stirring food every so often for 10-20 minutes while cooking.
I’ve had the pot for a couple of weeks now and it actually works. But, you can’t put it over heat higher than medium. If you do, you’ll see discoloration at the center.
1x patty of Steak-EZE Thinly Sliced and Shaped Sirloin Steak Strips, Frozen
4 x eggs
1 x 10″ diameter tortillas (the whole wheat carb balance kind has 110 calories, the flour kind has 210 calories)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Olive oil
Instructions
Warm up the tortilla in a 10″ pan on low heat
Put 2 tbsp of olive oil in a small 8″ pan on medium-high heat
Add the steak patty and cook patty for 2 minutes
Flip patty and cook for another 2 minutes
Using a heat-resistant silicon spatula, break the patty into small strips.
Transfer steak strips to a strainer over a small bowl and press to squeeze juices out. This will limit how much juice will leak through the bottom of the burrito and make a mess.
Flip the tortilla and cook the eggs. I prefer to scramble them.
Turn off the heat to the eggs before they’re done because they will continue to cook on their own
Sprinkle some shredded cheese on the eggs, add the steak, and mix
Transfer the mixture to the tortilla
Let the mixture cool a bit while washing the dishes
400 grams of long grain rice (leftover from the day before or refrigerated for at least 2 hours)
3 eggs
3/4 cup carrots, diced (can just chop pre-shredded carrots)
3/4 cup red or yellow onion, coarsely chopped
3/4 cup frozen peas
2 tbsp oyster sauce
4 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 cup meat (chicken or beef, optional)
¼ cup green onions, chopped into small pieces
To taste MSG, salt, pepper (MSG is actually not bad for you)
2 cloves garlic, minced
Instructions
Make an omelette. Beat the eggs (I like to use a handheld electric mixer). Using a small pat of butter, make an omelette (I use a large pan for this). Slice the omelette into squares and set aside.
Cook the meat. I used ground beef. When done, set aside.
Sauté veggies. Using butter, sauté the onions, carrots, peas and garlic until soft and cooked through. (I use a wok for this)
Stir fry rice. Turn the burner to high heat. Scooch the veggies over to one side of the pan, melt the remaining butter in the other half, and add the chilled rice, soy sauce, and oyster sauce (if using). Then stir to combine with the veggies and continue sautéing the rice, stirring every 15-20 seconds or so for 3 minutes, or until you notice the rice and veggies starting to brown slightly.
Remove pan from heat. Stir in the green onions, sesame oil, sliced omelette, and meat.
Taste and season. Give the rice a taste, and season with MSG and pepper, plus any extra soy sauce or sesame oil, if needed.
Mixing 3 eggsChop some shredded carrotsMake an omeletteSlice the omeletteGround beef
To break up the rice, use a food masher utensil.
You can also just buy one of these spice packets to make things simple.
I’ll try to make fried rice using each of these spice packets and rate each one.
Eggs are some of the healthiest foods you can eat. And, they taste good and are very cheap. However, if you’re looking to lose weight while maintaining or building muscle mass, you probably should only eat egg whites instead of whole eggs. As you can see in the table below, most of the protein in a whole egg comes from the egg white and all of the fat comes from the yolk.
Egg White
Whole Egg
Calories
18
71
Protein
4 grams
6 grams
Fat
0 grams
5 grams
You can buy egg whites cheap at Costco. A box of 6 16oz cartons costs $9.
Cooking it is super simple. I prefer the set-and-forget method to create an egg white patty. Here’s the recipe.
