$3 Dinner - Turkey Burger in Pita Bread

My apologies for not having posted for almost a week. Let's say I was very distracted.

These days, I'm kind of hooked to pita bread. At our local Greek grocery store, a package of 10 pita breads are sold at $1.49. It's not only inexpensive, but also it's kept frozen but can be easily, quickly thawed. One of the creative ways to use pita bread is to use it as buns. Today's $3 dinner is turkey burger in pita bread.

Ingredients (1 serving)
1 Turkey burger
1 Pita bread
Vegetables (whatever you have; I used lettuce, yellow onion, mushroom)

Directions
1.Take out a pita bread from the freezer and let it sit outside while preparing other ingredients
2.Cook the turkey burger either on a lightly greased pan or in a convection oven
3.Wash, drain, chop lettuce
4.Stir fry yellow onion and mushroom, adding salt and pepper
5.Cut top 1/4 of the pita bread, and put the burger and all the vegetables in the pocket


TAPO

$3 Dinner - Shish Kabob Sandwich

C.J.'s best friend is Greek. They have been friends for almost 30 years, which explains C.J.'s deep appreciation of Greek food. C.J. had introduced me to Greek food a few years ago, and recently, I decided to learn cooking one easy Greek dish: Shish Kabob Sandwich.

After frequenting Hub's Restaurant for six months or so for Shish Kabob Sandwich, I realized I've been spending a lot of money for this simple meal: $5.57 x so-many-times = $A-lot-of-money. So, I asked C.J.'s Greek friend for recipe of the dish, which turned out to be hilariously easy.

Ingredients (4 servings)
1.5 LB Pork, chopped in cubes (I use Pork Brisket Griller from CostCo)
Pita bread (Much cheaper if you buy from a Greek-owned grocery store)
Lettuce, chopped
Tomato, sliced
Yellow onion, sliced
Tzatziki sauce: I make using Greek style plain yogurt, garlic powder, cucumber bits*
Marinating sauce for pork: Olive oil, lemon juice, garlic powder, salt, pepper, dill

*I often skip cucumber part when I don't have it at home.

Directions
1.Marinate meat in the sauce for as long as your time allows
2.Grill the meat and yellow onion either in a pan or oven (I grill in our convection oven at Broil setting for 15 minutes at 400°F)
3.Place grilled meat, yellow onion, lettuce, tomato on a pita bread
4.Enjoy with Tzatziki sauce!


TAPO

$3 Dinner - Grilled Mackerel

Since we got our $2 electric grill from a yard sale last month, we've been enjoying the convenience of grilling. I've noticed grilling makes the food to be looked at with 'wow' as if grilling brings the food to some higher level of appreciation.

Anyways, the other day, I grilled mackerel for dinner. A package of 4 mackerel was $4.50 in a store, and they were so thick and fresh.

Ingredients (2 servings)
2 Mackerel
Flour or starch

Directions
1. Cut the fish in half
2. Lightly cover the fish with flour or starch
3. Grill or cook on a lightly greased pan


TAPO

$3 Dinner - Pasta Salad

Pasta salad is another way of feeding your family lots of healthful stuff. There is no real authentic recipe for pasta salad, so I add whatever I have at home. This past weekend, I made bean pasta salad for a picnic with friends at Ravinia Festival.

Ingredients (6-8 servings)
1LB rigate or rotini
1 Can - 15 oz. bean salad marinated in Italian dressing (or home-cooked beans of any kind and Italian dressing)
1 Pint grape tomatoes, cut in half
1 C black olives, cut in half
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
bell peppers, finely chopped
1/2 C grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
1. Cook pasta , drain and toss with oilve oil
2. Mix remaining ingredients and refrigerate until served


TAPO

Feast on $2 Grill

During Summer, we love to walk around, bike around or ride around the town browsing yard sales. A few weeks ago, there was a huge community yard sale in Arlington Heights, IL. It was organized by the wife of CJ's friend in order to raise fund to support two boys in the neighbor who lost their parents and house to a tragic fire incident.

The electric grill in the above picture is what we got from that yard sale. There was no scratch and it was in near-perfect condition, and it was only $2! What a steal!

Last weekend, we had a feast on the grill. The late lunch menu was Korean style bacon grill. We like Korean style bacon, because it's pure meat, not seasoned with salt. We grilled bacon and garlic, and had them with rice and hot pepper paste in a lettuce wrap. Later that day, we used leftover meat, rice, vegetables, and hot pepper paste to make fried rice over the grill as late dinner. As C.J. said, we ate like kings and queens!

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Baked Shrimp Rigate

Another quick and easy meal! Baked Shrimp Rigate - sounds grandiose, but real simple.

Ingredients (4 servings)
1 LB rigate
2/3 LB shrimp (cooked)
1 Yellow onion (chopped)
Pasta Sauce (any kind)
Cheese (I used frozen Mozzarella and grated Parmesan)
salt

Directions
1. Boil rigate. Add salt to taste if desired.
2. Sautee chopped onion. When onion turns light brown, add shrimp. Pre-heat the oven.
3. Mix cooked rigate, onion, and shrimp with pasta sauce.
3. In a deep baking pan, pour the mixture. Sprinkle cheese. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes at 350° F.
4. Dig in!

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Belt Fish Stew

Somebody in the house is feeling like chicken wings are coming out his armpits. Understandable. I have been cooking a lot of chicken dishes for the last three weeks - chicken skewer, chicken pizza, chicken Soojaebee, chicken over rice, chicken stew...

So it's fish this time. We had this belt fish stew in Jeju Island when we were visiting my family in Korea last winter. As you can see in the picture, it's spicy. I especially like the Korean radish which becomes soft and kind of sweet after soaking in all the seasonings.

Ingredients (4 servings)
1 Belt fish (I buy pre-cleaned frozen package)
1/3 Korean radish, washed and cut in bite size
3 Potatoes, peeled and cut in bite size
Anchovy broth (Boil 10 dried anchovy in 2C water; if you have, add dried shrimp and dried sea tangle)
Green onion, washed and chopped
1T Ginger, peeled and minced
1T Garlic, power or minced
3T Ground yellow onion
1T Brown sugar (I use plum extract, instead)
1T Malt (if you have)
6T Soy sauce
6T Cooking wine
2T Red Pepper Powder

Directions
1. In a wide-bottomed pan, add Korean radish, 1C anchovy broth, 1T soy sauce, 1T cooking wine
2. While it's cooking, make sauce => 1C anchovy broth, 5T soy sauce, 5T cooking wine, 3T ground yellow onion, 2T brown sugar, 1T malt, 2T red pepper powder, 1T garlic, 1T ginger, green onion
3. When the anchovy broth is almost gone in the pan, add potatoes and fish, and then pour the sauce over them. Cover the lid and cook.
4. When potatoes are soft, scoop the sauce from the bottom of the pan and pour it over the fish for a few minutes


TAPO

$3 Dinner - Everything Skewer

What do you do with leftover and other long-forgotten things in your freezer? This past weekend, I pulled them together to make skewers. It turned out to be super easy yet very popular!

Ingredients (No pressure! Use whatever you have.)
Chicken thigh
Onion
Green bell pepper (this was leftover from making pizza)
Kabocha squash (it was taking up our kitchen floor space for several weeks)
Pineapple (i found this cut & frozen in my freezer)
Seasoning for chicken

Directions
1. If you are using meat, wash-chop-marinate it with your favorite sauce
2. Put everything to the skewer sticks
3. Grill them (I used a convection oven)


Chicken was slightly crusty outside yet soft & juicy inside. Those that were neglected turned out to be the most popular - kabocha squash and pinepple were so juicy and they were the highlight of the skewers.


TAPO

$3 - Great Depression Cooking

I think we can learn a thing or two from this 95-year-old woman's cooking. As Clara recounts her childhood during the Great Depression, she prepares meals from the era in these shows posted at http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking.

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Chicken Over Rice

On weekdays, I really don't feel like spending more than 20 minutes to prepare dinner. Tonight's dinner menu Chicken Over Rice was my dream-come-true. It took me only about 10 minutes to prepare this dinner! (We usually program the rice cooker in the morning, so the rice is ready to be served when we come home.)

Ingredients (2 servings)

1 lb chicken, washed and cut into strips, seasoned with salt, pepper, and cooking wine

1/2 onion, sliced

4-5 dried red chile pepper

green onion, chopped

1 egg

1.5 C water

2 T soy sauce (or 1T tuna extract)

1/2 T garlic, minced

salt

pepper

2 bowls of rice

Directions

1.Sautee minced garlic in a lightly oiled pot
2.Add seasoned chicken strips and sliced onions to the pot and cook until chicken is not pink any more
3.Pour water into the pot; add dried red chile pepper, soy sauce (or tuna extract)
4.When the soup starts to boil, add egg and stir to break it
5.Add green onion to garnish; salt and pepper to taste
6.Pour it over rice and serve

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Wonder Pizza #2

Last Wednesday, C.J. and I decided to go to CostCo for a date night. It was after dinner, so we weren't really hungry. However, as there wasn't any sample food to munch on at CostCo that night, we became despondent and decided to buy and share a huge slice of pizza at CostCo food court. Half way into eating that pizza slice, C.J. made a very flattering comment: "Honey, your homemade pizza tastes much better than this". So here is the pizza for tonight's $3 dinner!

I call this a Wonder Pizza because it makes us eat lots of vegetables and other healthful stuff which we don't normally enjoy by themselves. Somehow the pizza sauce (or spaghetti sauce in our case) makes all things delicious.

Ingredients (1 large pizza)

>Yeast Mixture
2 ts yeast + 2 ts sugar + 1/2 cup of warm water

>Dough
4 C flour
1 t salt
2 t black pepper*
4 t red chile pepper*
1/2 C grated cheese (I used Parmesan & Romano)
1/2 C garlic powder
1/4 C olive oil
1 C warm water
1/2 C extra flour
1/4 C extra olive oil

*Adding black pepper and red chile pepper makes the dough spicy

>Toppings**
spaghetti/pizza sauce, chicken (seasoned & cooked), onion, bell peppers, olive, can of corn, pineapple, tomato, mozzarella cheese

**These are suggestions. Feel free to use whatever you have or want.

Directions
1.Make and set aside yeast mixture
2.In a big bowl, add and mix flour, salt, black pepper, red chile pepper, grated cheese, garlic powder
3.Add olive oil, warm water, yeast mixture to the bowl, and mix with a fork***
4.Sprinkling extra flour on the dough, knead it for 8-10 minutes
5.In a plastic or zipper bag, pour extra olive oil, put the dough in the bag, cover the dough with oil
6.Let the dough rise for about 1 hour
7.Punch it down and wait another 30 minutes
8.Spread the dough on a pizza stone or baking pan, roll the edges; preheat the oven
9.Bake the dough for 10 minutes at 400F
10.Spread spaghetti sauce, add toppings, sprinkle mozzarella cheese, and bake for 10-12 minutes at 400F

***A fork works much better than a spoon or spatula

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Hearty Oriental Chicken Stew

This past weekend, C.J.'s college roommate Mike and his wife, Grace came over for dinner. This chicken stew was one of the main dishes for the night. Despite strong kick of ginger and red hot pepper, everyone loved this dish. Oriental chicken stew for tonight's $3 dinner!

Ingredients (4 servings)

Chicken, washed and drained (I used 1 pack of skinless, boneless chicken thigh from CostCo)

Potato (2), washed and peeled

Onion (1)

Carrot (if you have)

Dried red hot pepper

Green Onion

Jujube (=red dates) (5-10)

Clear dry noodle (Dang-Myun in Korean), soaked in water until soft

Sauce: Soy Sauce (8TB), *Oyster/fish sauce (1TB), Cooking wine (3TB), Brown sugar (4TB), Minced garlice or garlic powder (1TB), Ginger powder or minced ginger (0.5TB), Pepper, Water (4C), Sesame oil (1TB)

*If you don't have oyster sauce, add more(2TB) soy sauce instead.

Directions

1. Cut chicken in bite size and sprinkle with salt and pepper

2. Cut potato, onion, carrot in similar size as chicken

3. Make sauce

4. Boil chicken, dried red hot pepper and jujube in 4 cups of water

5. When chicken is cooked, add potato, onion, carrots and sauce

6. When potato is cooked, add pre-soaked noodle and chopped green onion

7. Boil a few more minutes before serving

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Bowlful of Good Stuff

A bowl of rice can be more nutritious than a dozen dishes. On days when I cannot come up with grandious meals for millions of excuses, I comfort myself by making one of these super-nutritious bowl of rice. Accompanied by one or two side dishes, it becomes a humble, yet wholesome meal.

Followings are some of the grains I use:

White rice, Brown rice, Sweet brown rice, Wild black rice, Millet, Kidney beans, Black beans, Red beans

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Salmon Wrap with Asparagus and Mushroom

Health experts recommend 2 servings of salmon per week. As raw salmon is way too expensive, we use canned salmon instead. The usual salmon dish I make is 'Salmon Wrap (or Salmon SSAM in Korean)'.

We had this salmon wrap with mushroon salad and lightly sauteed asparagus for dinner tonight. The beauty of this meal is that there isn't much stove usage going on.

Ingredients & Directions (for 2 servings)

Let the rice cook while you prepare other dishes.

*Salmon Wrap

1 Canned Salmon

Lettuce, washed and drained

Korean red pepper paste (season it with sugar, sesame oil, little bit of vinegar)

*Mushroom Salad

Mushroom, washed, drained, and sliced (I use pre-sliced baby portabella mushroom from Trader Joe's) --> season it with salt, pepper, sesame oil

*Sauteed Asparagus

Peel off outer hard skin of asparagus

Chop asparagus in lengths of your preference

Sautee asparagus in a lightly oiled pan with some salt

How to eat

Place a lettuce on the palm of your hand

Put a little bit of everything on the lettuce (i.e. rice, salmon, mushroom, asparagus, red pepper paste)

Wrap the stack of food with the lettuce leaf

Squeeze the wrap into your moth - the smaller the wrap is, the easier it will go into your mouth!

Bon Appétit!

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Turkey Chili

Our march for 'more white meat and less red meat' continues, and today we made turkey chili. This big pot of chili should be enough for at least 6 servings, and total cost for all the ingredients is less than $10 even when we used organic kidney beans and tomatoes. So this truly is a $3 dinner. In addition, it's an easy and nutritious meal to make.

Ingredients

2 lb. ground turkey

1 onion, chopped

1 C celery, chopped

1/2 - 1 C bell pepper, chopped

1 - 6 oz. can tomato paste

1 - 28 oz. can diced tomatoes

2 - 15.5 oz. can kidney beans, drained & rinsed

4 t garlic, minced or power

1 t salt

1 t cumin

2 t chili powder

1 t cayenne

1/2 t pepper

Directions

1. Brown meat and onion.

2. Combine meat, onion and remaining ingredients. Mix well.

3. Cook in a slow cooker on High for 3 hours.

Desperately hoping this pot of chili will last us at least for the next two days, I'll stay away from the kitchen this weekend....(did you hear me, C.J.?)

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Sizzling Turkey Burger

Today's $3 dinner is turkey burgers. Last weekend, first time in my life, I made turkey burgers. I wrapped each with food wrap and put them in the freezer. This morning, I took three burgers out before leaving for work, and when I came home in the afternoon, they were well thawed and ready to be cooked. When cooked, they are much more tender than beef burger and also more healthful.

Ingredients

Ground turkey meat
Garlic (powder or fresh ones crushed)
Salt
Pepper
Flour (a few table spoons - it acts as glue and keeps the patties from breaking apart)
Yellow onion
Other vegetables you have (I added leftover chive & hot pepper)

Directions

1. Mix meat, garlic, salt, pepper, flour in a bowl
2. Add ground (or thinly chopped) yellow onion and hot pepper to the above mixture
3.If you have chive or cilantro, chop them and add to the mixture
4.Form the mixture into patties; wrap each with food wrap; freeze

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Omrice

Tonight, I'm challenging Erin Chase, the queen of $5 Dinners. I made Omrice for dinner today. Basically, it's fried rice covered with egg skins. I can't tell exactly how much it cost us to make this meal since potato & onion were purchased in bulk, but it should be somewhere between $2.50 and $3.

Ingredients (2 servings)

2 cups of rice, whatever vegetables you have (I used 1 potato, 1/4 onion, 1/4 green bell pepper), salt, pepper, 4 eggs, ketchup, oil

Directions

1. Cook rice

2. While rice is cooking, chop the vegetables and sautee them in pan, adding salt and pepper

3. Beat the eggs and make thin egg skins

4. Add cooked rice to the pan and mix with vegetables, adding more salt and pepper

5. Place fried rice on a plate and cover with egg shell

TAPO

$3 Dinner - Wonder Pizza #1

We, especially C.J., do not necessarily crave for vegetables. C.J. loves meat, and for me, I can think of dozens of recipes with meat but only a few with vegetables.

Recently, I found a way to feed us more vegetables: Wonder Pizza. I like making pizza from scratch - it's not only cheaper than buying, but also more healthful. For the toppings, I use whatever we have in the refrigerator and pantry: Olives, bell peppers, onions, mashed potato, corn, lots of garlic powder and all kinds of frozen or grated cheese. With the strong flavor of tomato sauce, the presence of unsightly vegetables goes easily unnoticed.