Category: Recipes

When I was a kid, there were 2 foods I ate a lot of

1. Pizza
2. Greek Gyro (pronounced “yee-ro”) Sandwiches

Pizza is available everywhere, but there aren’t many places that sell Greek Gyros in the San Francisco Bay Area. One place that has it is Nick the Greek, but at $12.50 for a small sandwich, it feels overpriced. So, I tried to make my own without the hassle of cooking the meat and making the Greek Tzatziki sauce. I couldn’t find precooked doner kebab (“doner” is Turkish for “rotating”) meat, like a rotisserie, but I did find kebabs at Costco, which take a minute to heat up in the microwave, come out juicy, and taste delicious. For the Tzatziki sauce, I bought Tzatziki salad dressing from Target. It tastes good, but it’s thick, so getting it out of the bottle required using a knife.

Ingredients

• Precooked Beef Kebabs (from Costco, $12.50 for 12 kebabs)
• Tzatziki Salad Dressing (from Target, $2.49)
• Pita Bread
• French Fries (I bought frozen ones from Costco and cooked them in an air fryer)
• Tomato
• Lettuce (I got chopped and pre-washed lettuce for convenience)

Instructions

1. Cut 10% of the pita bread so you can open it like a pocket
2. Toast the pita bread in a toaster
3. Heat the beef kebabs in a microwave for 1 minute
4. Smear the Tzatziki sauce on both inner sides of the pita bread
5. Insert the kebabs in the pita bread
6. Add some lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and french fries in the pita bread
7. Enjoy

UPDATE

Stuffing a pita bread such that the ingredients are distributed uniformly so that you can taste each ingredient with each bite is a bit difficult to do. Instead of using a pita bread, you can use Lavash bread, shown below. It’s much easier to place the ingredients on Lavash bread. First, smear the Tzatziki sauce all over one side of the bread.

Then, place the ingredients as shown below (I added some extra Tzatziki sauce on the lettuce).

Then, roll the lavash and place it in a panini press.

Enjoy

You can also make it using a hamburger bun.

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. 

Here’s a simple recipe for a cucumber salad.

Ingredients

• Cucumber (1)
• Water (1/2 cup)
• Salt (1 tsp)

Instructions

1. Pour water in a bowl
2. Add the salt and mix till dissolved
3. Slice the cucumber, add to bowl and mix

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.

1. Press the power button to turn on the Optigrill
2. Press the snowflake button because your patties are frozen
3. 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.

4. When the Optigrill beeps, it’s done heating up. Open the lid and place your patties.
5. 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.

In this post, I’ll share my recipe for a super simple fried riced cauliflower dish. Riced cauliflower has far fewer calories than rice, and it’s a healthier option. For the flavor, I’ve found either one of the following fried rice packets to be the best.

• Indofood Racik Bumbu Spesial Nasi Goreng
• Bamboe Nasi Goreng

Ingredients

• 1 lb of frozen riced cauliflower (available in packs of 5 at Costco)
• One of the two spice packets above
• 1/2 cup of water
• Oil spray

Instructions

1. Spray pot with oil
2. Add water and riced cauliflower
3. Remove the glass window, turn on the stirrer, and cook on medium
4. Set a timer for 20 minutes and go do something useful
5. After 20 minutes, the water should have evaporated. Remove the lid and stirrer arm attachment.
6. Add the spice mix and stir with a heat-resistant and scratch-resistant silicone spatula.
7. Optionally, mix in precooked meat, vegetables, eggs, etc.
8. Transfer to a plate or bowl and enjoy

Ingredients

• 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.

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.

	Rating	Note
No spice packet. Recipe above.	7/10
Bamboe Nasi Goreng	7/10
Bamboe Nasi Goreng Pedas	7/10	Too spicy
Kokita Nasi Goreng Fried Rice
Indofood Racik Bumbu Spesial Nasi Goreng	8/10
Kikkoman Fried Rice	5/10
Indofood Racik Bumbu Nasi Goreng
Pamana Seasoning Mix
Noh Chinese Fried Rice
Munik Fried Rice	3.5/10
Nagatanien Fried Rice Mix
Pronas Bumbu Nasi Goreng	6/10