Spicy Tuna (Ahi) Bowls

Fresh ahi

We loved this recipe.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we made spicy ahi (tuna) bowls for the male half of this couple's birthday.   The way we've always made spicy ahi has been with a little bit of Japanese mayonnaise (which seems creamier) and chili oil. Since it was his birthday, we decided to turn it into a Celebration meal and have it the way we usually make it but using low fat mayonnaise.

You can substitute fat free mayonnaise if you can find it in your local market.  Omit the chili oil if you are wanting it to be closer to a Dukan recipe and use just the cayenne pepper.

This is a recipe we usually don't measure, we just add stuff, then taste, add more if needed, etc.  We will try to do our best in guesstimating what we normally use.

RECIPE
Serves 2

3/4 - 1 lb. of raw fish (tuna, salmon, etc, make sure it's fresh) usually feeds the two of us (one eating the fish with rice and the other just eating it without rice or wrapped up in nori or seaweed
cayenne pepper

Spicy Ahi

mayonnaise (Japanese, low fat or fat free)
chili oil

Sauce for rice:
soy sauce (low sodium)
water (only if you want to water your soy sauce down like we do)

Cut fish into desired size.  Sometimes we do small cubes and if we have time we sort of mince the fish, add to a bowl.  Sprinkle a small amount of cayenne pepper on your fish, if you love spicy food, use more cayenne pepper, but keep in mind you will add chili oil too.  Mix fish and cayenne, let sit for a few minutes.  In the meantime, prepare your mayonnaise/chili oil mix.  We normally make 1 T. at a time since we don't like our fish with too much mayonnaise.  Take 1 T. of mayonnaise and mix well in a small bowl until creamy.  Add a couple splashes of chili oil, mix well and taste add more chili oil is desired.  We like ours hot, so we use quite a bit of chili oil.  Add mayonnaise mix into fish.  Make and add more mayo/chili oil mix if desired.  Once you have the spicy taste you want, put your spicy fish mixture into the refrigerator.

If you're eating this over rice, we usually mix soy sauce with water and dab the soy sauce mixture on the rice before placing the spicy fish mixture on the rice.  The amount you use depends on how much rice you are eating and how many people you are feeding.  For two bowls, we normally use 1 - 2 t. soy sauce and 1 t. water.

Since it was his birthday, the male half of this couple got some avocado cubes added to his bowl!

Enjoy...we always do!

Dukan Korean Turkey and Veggie Bowl

Korean Turkey and Veggie Bowl

We loved this recipe.

We wanted to try bibimbap for the longest time, but knew we had to make some changes to make it a Dukan friendly recipe.  Although time consuming, this is a very easy dish to prepare. Bap means rice in Korean and we've usually seen this served with white rice...that we replaced with quinoa.  We used less oil for the veggies and used olive oil spray when stir frying the turkey and veggies.

This was a great light dish although it took a while to prepare.  Almost an hour!  It looks pretty when you put your bowl together, but you end up mixing everything up.  Next time, to save time, we'll probably cook certain veggies together.  For example, the cucumbers, carrots and mushrooms we'll cook together instead of individually.  The only time we'd cook them separately is if we were making bibimbap and banchan.  This dish can also be made as a vegetarian dish, omit the ground turkey and add more veggies.  Also, lean ground beef, chicken or pork can be substituted.

The garlic and sesame are what makes this dish tasty.  Not recommended for Cruise.  Eat in moderation during Consolidation.  If we were in Cruise, which we may go back to in January, we might make this dish without quinoa and very little sesame oil.  Sesame oil is very strong, a little bit can flavor up your dish a lot!

RECIPE
Serves 4
Prep Time: 40-50 minutes
Cook Time: 10-20 minutes

1 cup uncooked quinoa
1 1/4 c. chicken broth
1 lb. ground turkey, lean
1 carrot (small), sliced into strips
1 cucumber (small), sliced into strips
1 1/2 c. bean sprouts
1/4 c. - 1/2 c. hydrated shiitake mushroom pieces (or your favorite type of mushroom), thinly sliced
soy sauce (1 t. for the cucumbers or whichever green veggie you use, 2 t. for the mushrooms, 1-2 T. for the ground turkey)
garlic cloves, minced (1 for the bean sprouts, 1 for the green veggies, 6-8 for the ground turkey)
sesame oil (you'll use a splash or two for each item)
kosher salt (1 or two pinches for the bean sprouts, 2 pinches for the green veggies)
natural sweetener (1 - 2 t. for the mushrooms, 1 T. for the ground turkey)
pepper, a dash or two for the ground turkey
4 uncooked eggs
gochujang or chili paste (it also tastes just fine without the hot sauce)
platter to hold all the cooked ingredients
4 bowls to eat from, you'll want to use larger bowls since the dish is usually mixed up

Usually each item is cooked separately.  We will show you how to put this together how it usually is cooked, then how we would cook it next time (and how our Korean Aunty told us she cooks it when she doesn't have time).

Cook your quinoa in a rice cooker with 1 1/4 c. chicken broth (use more liquid if you prefer your quinoa softer, we prefer ours the same texture as tabouleh).  While the quinoa is cooking start on the other ingredients.  Bring bean sprouts to a boil in about a cup or two of water, add 1 t. salt and let simmer for 20 minutes.  Drain water, add 1 clove garlic (minced), a pinch of salt and a small splash of sesame oil.  Mix and set on your platter.  Depending on what kind of green veggie you are using, either boil it (if it's something like spinach) or saute it if it's cucumbers or zucchini.  We sauteed our cucumber slices in a pan with a light bit of non stick spray.  Remove from pan and mix with a pinch of salt, 1 t. soy sauce, 1 clove of minced garlic and a small splash of sesame oil.  Set cucumbers on your platter.  Saute carrots in a pan with a little bit of non stick spray if necessary, set on the platter.  Stir fry mushrooms in a pan with a little bit of non stick spray, add 2 t. soy sauce, 1 - 2 t. natural sweetener and stir fry for 2 minutes.  Add a small splash of sesame oil, continue to stir fry for another minute, then transfer to your platter.  Cook ground turkey in a pan with a little bit of non stick spray, 6-8 minced garlic cloves, 2 T. soy sauce, 1 T. natural sweetener, a little bit of pepper and a splash of sesame oil.   Transfer to platter.  Cook eggs, each person will get one egg for their bowl - either over easy or sunny side up.  We've seen people eat this with a raw egg too.  We suggested heating up your bowl of food before mixing in a raw egg to the dish.  Add desired amount of quinoa to each bowl, build bowls to each person's liking, top with an egg, mix it all up, then enjoy!

Shortcut way - next time, we are taking a shortcut.  We'd boil the bean sprouts along with any veggies that we would normall boil (i.e. spinach), saute all the sauteed veggies together, cook the ground turkey separately, cook the eggs, then build bowls.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Holiday Pig Out

Along the way to Ka'ena Point (it was very windy)

Wow, we tried to be good this weekend, but it lasted all of about 3 hours!  We had a busy but great Christmas weekend.  We haven't had time to post recipes, but we did manage to cook a couple of dishes this weekend.  This week will be another busy week with friends in town (lots of friends), then we're doing some neighbor island hopping for New Years to see family.

We intended to cook a healthy dish on Friday night, but at the spur of the moment we decided to drive out to Ka'ena for a sunset hike.  The hike lasted about an hour and we walked quickly due to the sun setting...so the good part, we got in exercise.  It was VERY windy.   The bad - to get there from town, the drive is over and hour and with holiday traffic, even longer. It's nothing compared to driving on the mainland United States, it's really the amount of cars on our island that makes driving so long.

It was getting late and we were driving around a town called Kapolei looking for a restaurant to eat at but nothing called out to us.  Finally, starving, we decided to stop at a place at a pizza joint near the airport (still about 20 minutes from home without holiday traffic).  Celebration meal for the week.  The pizza was tasty (closer to deep dish), but too doughy for us.

The next day (Christmas Eve), we decided lunch needed to be a healthy dish since we had already planned our Christmas Eve Pasta Night like we usually do.  Ended up trying a dish called Konbu Maki, an Okinawan dish made with pieces of pork rolled in seaweed and simmered in a soy flavored sauce.  Asian families usually eat this during New Year's ...it took a long time to make, we can see why our families don't have this regularly.  Will post the recipe...it is a healthy dish and you can make a bunch of the rolls for a few meals.  Every Christmas Eve we make some sort of pasta dish, this year we made a Baked Rigatoni which was a cross between our lasagna and baked ziti recipes.  Will post this recipe too.  We considered it another celebration meal, even though we had a celebration meal the day before but we used whole wheat pasta and low fat cheeses.

Ka'ena Sunset

On Christmas Day, another celebration meal.  Uncle's family brought over a Korean feast - nothing was Dukan.  Chap Chae - a Korean stir fried noodle dish with definitely a lot of sesame oil, kalbi  - Korean grilled short ribs, fish jun - battered and deep fried fish, and seafood pa jun - or seafood pancake.  Everything was delicious, but as mentioned, not Dukan!

We finally did get a healthy dish in last night, will post this recipe too...we used a Kung Pao Chicken sauce recipe, Dukan'd it and used thin slices of pork.  It was great, we didn't miss the oil normally used in stir fries.  This recipe was inspired by Flamidwyfe's blog...she always has sliced beef stir fried with garlic and scallions or cilantro, it made us hungry for stir fries!

We did gain a pound each and now we're going on vacation!  Yikes!  Luckily the vacation will include some neighbor island hiking.

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Busy in the kitchen, but not with cooking!

The other day was the male half of this couple's birthday.  He doesn't get excited about food (it's just fuel to him) but whenever the female half of this couple asks him what he wants her to make for him (special days) he always wants either spicy salmon bowls or baked ziti.  We decided to save the baked ziti for our Christmas Eve dinner.  We were ready to head over to Marukai, our local Japanese store for some toro salmon or fatty salmon and tobiko (fish eggs) when our local fish guy called us...he had fresh ahi (tuna).  Oh my.  Although we love spicy salmon bowls, our local fish guy gets his fish right from the fish auction which means very fresh fish at a fraction of the market prices.  We picked up our pound and a half from the fish guy and decided to not fight holiday traffic to pick up the tobiko.

The spicy ahi bowls were a success and the rest of the time in the kitchen this week was spent making Christmas gifts for family and friends.  We've been in the kitchen from pau hana time (after work time) until 1AM every night this week!  No time to cook.  We did bake some lower fat pineapple cupcakes though.

We will post the spicy ahi bowls, pineapple cupcakes and bibimbap recipes soon!  There won't be a lot of cooking this weekend also since we have family coming in from Maui and we decided to have a Korean feast for Christmas lunch :-)

Side note: yesterday we had another holiday get together with a bunch of friends at the Prince Court Buffet at the Hawaii Prince Hotel in Waikiki.   If you're a Marukai Wholesale Market member, take your membership card for a 20% discount for up to 6 people.  The buffet is huge (we forgot our camera).  There were many Dukan or close to Dukan dishes to choose from including a shabu shabu bar where you boil your meats and veggies and use a soy based or sesame based sauce to dip your food in.  The beef on the shabu shabu bar was too fatty for us to eat, but we did have some fresh spinach, oyster mushrooms and a little bit of tofu.  The made to order sushi bar was more than happy to make handrolls minus the rice!  Awesome!

Just a few more holiday gatherings, then it's probably back to Cruise or even some PP days (mini Attack Phase) for us. :-)

In case we don't get to blog before Christmas, hope everyone has a great Christmas!

UPDATED: Dukan Korean Style Bean Sprouts

Photo from Wikipedia.  We forgot to take a pic of our bean
sprouts, but we didn't add carrots or green onions.

We both loved this...well, we've always had bean sprouts at Korean restaurants and loved them, but we never made them at home until last night.  Super easy, very healthy...we'll be making this as a side dish often!

Walk into any Korean restaurant, whether it's a sit down or takeout restaurant, you'll always be served banchan.  At some sit down restaurants, banchan is all you can eat, all you have to do is ask for a refill.

Last night we made some bean sprouts which fall under the namul category.  If you're in the Cruise Phase, omit the sesame oil although we really just used a tiny splash and our bean sprouts were very flavorful.  We amending this post - since bean sprouts are technically a seed, those on Cruise may want to wait until Consolidation to consume bean sprouts.  We ate it regularly during Cruise without any weight gain, but if you're sticking to Dukan strictly, wait until Consolidation.  Thanks flamidwyfe for catching that!

RECIPE:
The bean sprouts from this recipe can be used as a side dish or as part of a bibimbap dish.  We'll post our Dukan Bibimbap recipe soon...although we can't really call it Bibimbap since bap means rice and we replaced the rice with quinoa.   Bibimquinoa?  ;-)

Serves 2-4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes

1 1/2  c. bean sprouts, cleaned
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 c. water
1 t. soy sauce (we used tamari)
1 clove garlic, minced
a pinch of kosher salt
a splash of sesame oil

Clean bean sprouts (we usually remove all the brown parts) and soak for 5 minutes in cold tap water.  Drain.  In a pot, add water, 1 t. kosher salt and bean sprout.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  In the meantime, combine the soy sauce, garlic and pinch of kosher salt in a bowl.  After bean sprouts are cooked, drain and add to the soy sauce mixture.  Add a splash of sesame oil (omit if you're in the Cruise Phase) and mix.  Serve hot or cold (most Korean restaurants serve this cold).  If you like spicy food, add some chili paste or chili flakes.

Enjoy!

Under the weather

The flu bag attacked again!  The flu and the stomach flu have been making it's rounds in both our offices as well as many other offices in Hawaii.  We spent the last week or so having mostly soups and comfort foods.  Plus we've been trying to keep up with the holiday gift making/sending.   Whew!

We've been trying to eat healthy here and there, but this coming week will be another non-cooking week. We've got two birthday dinners and family coming over from neighbor islands for the holidays...yay!  We can't believe Christmas is less than a week away.  Is everyone ready?!  

Last night we finally had enough energy to cook dinner and it was great.  We made a healthier version of bibimbap, a Korean dish usually made with rice, seasoned veggies and meat.  We made ours with quinoa, ground turkey and seasoned veggies.  We'll post the recipe soon!    The seasoned veggies are referred to as banchan.  Very simple to make.  Will post a bean sprout banchan recipe too.  It calls for sesame oil, but we just used a tiny splash and it was enough to flavor the bean sprouts. 

We're looking forward to catching up with everyone's Dukan blogs!  Being on Consolidation has been working out great for us.  The male half of this couple is feeling healthy and the female half of this couple is almost back to her pre-vacation weight!  It has been tough with tons of cookies, cakes, and other sweets being delivered to our offices and given to us by family members.  

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Dukan Pollo Guisada

Pollo Guisada

We loved this recipe.

This dish was very tasty.  It originally was a "Carne Guisada" recipe from skinnytaste.com, but since we planned on having beef the following night, we made this dish with chicken.  The recipe is very, very similar to the Chicken Sofrito Stew recipe we posted (which also came from skinnytaste) - we probably should have tried this with beef instead.

We intended to make the aji picante mentioned in skinnytaste's recipe but habanero peppers are $10.99 per pound at our local Safeway and they looked a bit wrinkled.  Next time, if they go on sale.  The other adjustment we made the recipe (besides the type of meat) is replacing the 2 small tomatoes with crushed tomatoes to accomodate the male half of this couple's dislike for tomatoes.  We did make this recipe with red potatoes for the male half of this couple, which he loved.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-3
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 2 + hours

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (fat removed, then cut in half)
1 c. green onions, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 - 14 oz. can crushed tomatoes (or 2 small tomatoes, chopped)
2 T. cilantro, minced
1/3 c. light beer
1/3 c. water
1/2 t. cumin
1/4 tsp. adobo seasoning (or salt)
1/2 t. sazon (or achiote, if you can't get either, leave it out)
1 bay leaf
kosher salt to taste
2 small baby red potatoes, quartered (optional, but not allowed during the beginning phases of the diet)

In a large pot, turn stove to medium heat.  Spray pot with a little bit of olive oil spray.  Add green onions and garlic and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Add tomatoes, cilantro and a pinch of salt.  Cook another 2 minutes, stirring.  Add chicken (patted dry) to pot along with beer, water, cumin, adobo, sazon, bay leaf and a couple pinches of salt.  Cover and simmer on low heat for 1 1/2 hours.  Add potatoes and cook until soft, 20-30 minutes.

Enjoy...we sure did!

The Brunch

Oh boy, Sunday Brunch was great!  We went in with the mindset that it would be a Celebration meal, but if the female half of this couple didn't have dessert and asparagus, it could have been a PP day!   There were actually enough great tasting low fat choices on the buffet line to keep it Dukan.

Very fresh sashimi (raw fish)

The brunch was at the Halekulani Hotel - $57 per person, a bit pricey since they no longer include champagne nor did they have any shrimp cocktail.  The quality however is excellent.   To get our money's worth (and to eat just enough and not stuff ourselves), we decided to plate up some of the more expensive items like the sashimi or raw fish which was very good, poke, and salmon.  Threw on a few veggies then saw the Eggs and Crab Benedict and decided we needed to split one!  Wow, it was so good!  The 1/4 English muffin (from the eggs benedict) was actually the only carb we ate that day!

Desserts available

There was a roasted pig and prime rib available.  We decided to avoid those items - too fatty.

There were popoever muffins, banana muffins, cheeses, breads, strawberry butter, etc. available but we didn't crave it one bit.  There was also an omelet station which we decided to forego (since the line was always so long).

Ice cream/sorbet bar

No, we didn't eat all the desserts on this plate!  The dessert spread sat on an 8' table, all mini desserts, very beautiful.  There was also an ice cream/sorbet bar (the lilikoi or passion fruit sorbet was our choice).

We didn't think we ate that much, but the sugar in the sorbet must have made us get what local people call "kanak attack".  It was a nice holiday treat for us and nice to spend time with some friends.  No more buffets for us unless they are at a wedding.

Just out of curiosity, the female half of this couple weighed herself as soon as we got him and weighed about a pound more than before we went to brunch.  (The female half of this couple can get a little carried away with the weigh ins).  It's been two days since the brunch and no weight gained!

The photos featured here came from a friend who also went to the Halekulani Brunch but at a different time (we forgot our camera!)

Dukan Asian Chicken and Bamboo Stir Fry

Asian Chicken and Bamboo Stir Fry
(it really did look appetizing in person!)

We loved this dish, even though it was a bit salty for us.

Originally we wanted to make a Thai recipe called "Moo Pad Prig No Mai" but we have quite a few packages of chicken tenderloins in the freezer from Costco and we didn't have time to shop in Chinatown this week for the Thai paste and kaffir lime leaves.  We did however have some bamboo shoots in the fridge we wanted to use up.

This is by far our favorite way of cutting our chicken tenderloin, it really ended up nice and moist.  Slice your chicken tenderloins very thin and at an angle.  It'll look like most Thai dishes.   If you don't like spicy food, you may want to leave out the chili pepper flakes and use only one tablespoon of chili paste.  Also, if you aren't watching your sodium intake, go ahead and use an entire tablespoon of soy sauce (we used 1.2 T. low sodium soy sauce and 1/2 T. water).

We probably would've eaten this during Cruise even though it has oyster sauce and the sambal oelek, just not often.  This dish was quick and easy!

1 lb. chicken tenderloin, washed, patted dry and cut into thin, flat strips
1 c. bamboo shoot strips, canned
2 T. sambal oelek
1 tsp. red chili pepper flakes
1 T. fish sauce
1/2 T. low sodium soy sauce
1/2 T. water
2 T. oyster sauce
1/2 t. natural sweetener

Mix fish sauce, soy sauce, water, oyster sauce and natural sweetener in a bowl and set aside.  Heat wok over high heat.  Spray pan with a little bit of olive oil spray.  Add sambal oelek and chili pepper flakes.  Stir until fragrant.  Add chicken and stir fry 4-6 minutes or until chicken is cooked.   Add bamboo shoots and  stir fry for a minute.  Add fish sauce mixture and stir fry for another 2-3 minutes.  Serve immediately.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Following Us By Email

Wow, we just realized (thanks to Flamidwyfe) we didn't have an "Follow By Email" feature on our blog! Yikes!  We love this feature on all our other favorite blogs.  Sorry we didn't have one on there, but now we do!

On another note, today is our office building's holiday luncheon but since we are going to Sunday Brunch  and have dinner with friends from Florida soon after that, we're saving our celebration meals for then.  We're not sure what's being served today, but if it's typical local Hawaii food, there probably are a lot of carbs, fried and sugar loaded foods.  Yikes!

We're still undecided on what to do about Sunday Brunch...some days we (meaning the female half of this couple) wants to just eat proteins and veggies at brunch, then other days we decide maybe it'll be a celebration meal and we'll have a dessert and champagne.   This will be the second buffet we're going to since we started the Dukan diet (the other was a family wedding, but there were so many food choices we were able to put together a plate of raw fish, green salad, meats and roasted veggies.

Will try to post photos from the Sunday Brunch, it's been voted the best in Honolulu!

Hot Hula - similar to Zumba

Not sure if all of you have heard of Hot Hula, but it was on our local news the other morning.  A local Hawaii woman created a polynesian version of Zumba!   The clip we saw on the news looked like mostly slower Tahitian dance moves (as a former Tahitian dancer, the female half of this couple agrees Tahitian dancing is really a workout).  According to the founder, she incorporates both Tahitian and Hula dance moves in her routines.  Gee, why didn't we think of that?!    Come to think of it, when the female half of this couple did dance Tahitian, she was in way better shape!

The male half of this couple probably won't take up Hot Hula any time soon, but the female half of this couple is going to dig out her old Tahitian routines from college and add this to her exercise list.  Here are some you tube videos of Hot Hula:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjFSkDpjnwM&noredirect=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPzaDPidGsM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YSfJywYtic&feature=related

Not sure if the female half of this couple can bring herself to dancing Tahitian moves to hip hop music (as fun as it sounds), she is a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to Polynesian dances!

If you're interested in trying Hot Hula, I highly recommend following along with the you tube posts before you invest in a DVD of routines to decide if it's for you.  You don't have to become an advanced dancer.  The female half of this couple has taught slower Tahitian numbers to students in Japan and it still gets your heart rate going and makes you sweat...a lot.

If you have any questions about Tahitian dancing (we're not experts, but have learned several routines over the past 20 years), please feel free to email us at hapacouple@gmail.com.  We also don't mind helping you get started via a Skype lesson or two.

Consolidation and our friends

A couple of our friends have shown interest in the Dukan Diet after seeing the female half of this couple lose around 15 pounds...and keeping it off!  One of them even read up on the diet and asked for some of our recipes.  In the end, all three friends decided the diet was way to restrictive for them.

One couple ended up cutting out rice (they only ate brown rice to begin with) and shed a couple of pounds.  They are also adding two days of low impact exercise to their weekly routine.  The other two friends we're still trying to motivate more so because we'd like our friends to be mindful of their fat intake and remain healthy.

Now that we've been in Consolidation for a few weeks and have managed to shed a couple of pounds, we're gently trying to get our friends to start in the Consolidation Phase since they've all agreed they can't make it through Attack and Cruise.  Their weightloss wouldn't be as drastic, but Consolidation does promote healthier eating, eating fatty/sugary foods in moderation and a healthier lifestyle.

With the holidays here, we may need to put our Consolidation pitch on the side and work on them in January.  It'll be a tough month for us too.  The next two weeks we have 4 holiday gatherings planned.  Most of our gatherings are what we call "pupu pau hana" gatherings or "after work happy hour" gatherings.  Most of the restaurants here serve deep fried, fatty appetizers during happy hour - the cheaper foods.   Some of the Dukan bloggers we are following are lucky enough to have some friends who also Dukan, but for us, during these gatherings we are the only two Dukan-ing which makes it harder to order healthier foods...the kind everyone else wouldn't eat!

Here are some of the foods we've been eating during Consolidation:

• Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins - once or twice a week (we can eat this daily, but we really don't miss bread anymore)
• Van's Wheat-Free Gluten-Free Waffles and French Toast Sticks with sugar free maple syrup - once a week
• Non-fat yogurt with oat bran - daily
• Boiled eggs - once a week
• Homemade omelets - once a week
• Fat Free Turkey Hot Dogs - every other day
• Think Thin Protein Bars, Chocolate Fudge - daily
• Salads
• Homemade Dukan meals
• Poke - once a week
• Pizza - celebration meal
• Turkey Reuben - celebration meal
• Pasta - celebration meal
• Pumpkin Pie - celebration dessert
• Moscato wine - celebration
• Sushi - celebration

As mentioned in an earlier post, we're trying to be as good as we can during the holidays but plan on doing a few Pure Protein days and possibly go back to Cruise come January.  Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Dukan Korean Braised Chicken (easy)

Korean Braised Chicken (the veggies are underneath!)

We loved this recipe...we will definitely make this again!

This past week the female half of this couple has been 'ono (hungry) for Korean food.  We came across a great Korean recipe site and decided to try one of the recipes out.  This dish was supposed to be Dakjjim, but we made quite a few changes (some to make it Dukan and some to fit what we already had in the fridge) we're not sure we can still call it Dakjjim.

We've never had Dakjjim, so we're not even sure what it's supposed to taste like...but as mentioned earlier, we loved this recipe.  Next time we will make the following changes: use chicken thighs with the fat removed, add the potatoes for the male half of this couple, run out and buy the peppers and add an additional bag of shirataki noodles.  Another note, the recipe mentions adding garlic and ginger to the recipe, but we didn't see where she listed how much to use.  The recipe below is what we ended up using.

Our oyster sauce had sugar in it but if you can find one that doesn't have sugar, you can make this dish during Cruise without the starchy veggies and sesame oil.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes

1 lb. chicken tenderloins, cut into bit sized pieces (soak in cold water for a few minutes)
1 can straw mushrooms (you can use white mushrooms)
1 carrot, cut into 1/8" slices
1/2 large red onion, sliced
5 green onion stalks, cut into 2" pieces
shred the white parts of the green onion and soak in cold water for 10 minutes
1 red pepper, sliced (seeds removed)
1/2 jalapeno, diced (seeds removed)
1 bag shirataki noodles (we used the Japanese ones, but you can use the angel hair Tofu Shirataki noodles), rinsed and drained
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 t. ground ginger (we would have used 1/2 - 1" of fresh ginger if we had it)

Sauce ingredients (mix together before you start cooking)
1/4 c. soy sauce (we used 1/2 soy sauce and 1/2 water due to high blood pressure)
1/4 c. oyster sauce
1 T. splenda brown sugar
1 packet Truvia

Heat wok, spray with a little bit of olive oil spray and add chicken.  Stir a few times, then look cook for 3-5 minutes.  Stir again and cook for another 3-5 minutes.  Add garlic and ginger, stir fry.  Add sauce and 2 - 2 1/2 c. water - start with 1 3/4 c., mix and taste.  If it's too salty, add more water.  We ended up using 2 c. water.  Cover and cook on high heat for 8-10 minutes.  Uncover and add onions and carrots, cook for another 8-10 minutes on high heat.  Add mushrooms, peppers, and noodles, stir and cook for 7 minutes.  We added a t. of cornstarch to thicken the sauce up, but after we ate the dish, we didn't feel it needed thickening.  Turn off heat and add 2 t. black pepper and 1 T. sesame oil.  Mix well and serve.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Vietnamese Fish

Vietnamese Fish

We liked this recipe....it was very tasty.

We love Vietnamese food and this dish was tasty, but it didn't make us go "wow".  We would definitely make this again and might try it with chicken instead of fish since the recipe we found was made with chicken.  We pretty much followed the recipe almost to the tee, except we omitted the oil and we only put tomatoes in one envelope since the male half of this couple doesn't like tomatoes.

We ate this as is...no starch or starch replacement.  On a celebration day, we would've eaten this with some Vietnamese noodles.  It is a very light dish and easy to make.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Bake Time: 15 minutes or until fish is cooked through

1 lb. marlin, cut into cubes
pepper
kosher salt
1/2 tomato, dices
1 t. ginger, minced
2 green onions, finely sliced
2 T. fish sauce (Vietnamese)
a pinch of natural sweetener
fresh chopped cilantro for garnish

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.  Sprinkle cubes of fish with pepper and salt, mix.  In a bowl, combine tomatoes, ginger, green onion, fish sauce and sugar, then toss with fish.  Prepare two large pieces of parchment paper.  We like to fold our parchment in half, then cut a heart shape out of it (half a heart so when you open it you have a full heart).  Place half the fish mixture in each of the parchment and fold to seal.  Place both packages on a sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes or until fish is cooked, let sit for 5 minutes before opening packet.  Open packets carefully, top with fresh chopped cilantro and serve either by itself or over Vietnamese noodles. (you don't have to use as much cilantro as we did, we just love cilantro.)

Enjoy!

Dukan Korean Inspired Fish

Korean Inspired Fish

We liked this recipe, we probably would have liked it better if it were less salty.

Korean food is very popular in Hawaii and one of our friends started telling everyone how much she loves Korean food.  She made us hungry for some Korean food and one our favorite dishes is Fish Jun.  Fish Jun is normally just fish with salt and pepper dipped in an egg batter and fried served with a dipping sauce.  We decided to try making Fish Jun with a Meat Jun recipe.  We used Sam Choy, a local Hawaiian  chef's meat jun marinade for our recipe.  If you like your food saltier, use all soy sauce instead of the 1/8 c. soy sauce and 1/8 c. water.  We always use low sodium soy sauce, but that is still too salty for us.

We also decided to try this recipe without the flour, even though in consolidation we would have use oat bran ground into flour or wheat flour.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-3
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time - 15-20 minutes

3/4 pound white fish, we used a marlin, you'll want to cut your fish into thinner slices if it isn't thin already
1/8 c. low sodium soy sauce
1/8 c. water
2 T. sesame oil
1 green onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 eggs, beaten

Dipping sauce:
1/8 c. low sodium soy sauce
1/8 c. water
1 stalk green onion, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 t. ground sesame seeds or 1/8 t. sesame oil

Mix the soy sauce, water, sesame oil, green onion and garlic in a bowl.  You can either marinate your fish for an hour or dip your fish in the sauce, then in the egg batter, then fry in a pan sprayed lightly with olive oil spray.   The fish cooks fast, so you'll want to mix your dipping sauce ahead of time.  We served our fish on whole wheat sandwich thins so we used the dipping sauce as a sandwich dip sauce.

Enjoy!

Dukan Singapore Noodles

Singapore Noodles

We loved this recipe...but it was a bit spicy for the female half of this couple.

Well, not make your nose run spicy, but spicy enough where the first thought that came to mind was "we have to use less curry powder next time".  

A few months ago we came across a great recipe site called "No Recipes".   This is the first recipe we've tried from this site, but everything Marc posts looks great and the innovative recipes even better.  The male half of this couple loves curry, so we chose this as our first recipe to make from this site.  

You can find Marc's original recipe here.   While we loved the way this dish came out, here are the changes we would make to the recipe below: use angel hair tofu noodles instead (we already had the spaghetti tofu noodles in the fridge), use only 1 T. curry powder and lessen the amount of chicken broth mixture since with the tofu noodles being non-absorbant this dish came out soupy.  For a celebration meal, we would use Marc's recipe as he posted it, with the mai-fun noodles. 

Another note: we used turkey breast since we already had some in the fridge, but next time we'll either try chicken or tofu. 

RECIPE:

Serves 2-4

Prep Time: 15-20 minutes

Cook Time: less than 10 minutes

* We recommend prepping all ingredients first since this dish cooks quickly.

2 pkg. tofu noodles (we used spaghetti but would have gone with angel hair)

4 oz. turkey breast, cut into strips

2 t. shoyu (soy sauce)

2 t. Chinese rice wine

1 t. cornstarch

2 T. curry powder

2 T. fish sauce (we used a Vietnamese one)

1 T. oyster sauce

3/4 c. chicken broth

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T. ginger, minced

1/2 medium onion, sliced

1 red bell pepper, chopped

8 oz. can of strip bamboo

4 oz. bean sprouts

3 green onions, chopped

Boil noodles for 5 minutes in salted water.  Drain and pat dry.  While your noodles are boiling, mix the shoyu, rice wine and cornstarch in a bowl.  Add turkey and let marinade.

Measure out curry powder into a small dish.  In a separate bowl, combine fish sauce, oyster sauce and chicken broth.  Heat a wok over high heat until very hot and spray with a little bit of olive oil spray, then add the egg, swirling them scrambling.  Remove egg and set aside.  Spray wok again, then add garlic and ginger, then fry until fragrant.  Add the turkey (discard marinade).  Our turkey was already cooked so we just stir fried it to heat the turkey.  

Add the onion, bell pepper, bamboo and bean sprouts - stir fry until vegetables are a bright color.  Add the curry powder and stir fry until fragrant, then pour chicken broth mixture in.  Stir, then add noodles and use a tong to coat noodles with sauce.  Top with green onions and serve immediately.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Consolidation

It's been a BUSY couple months with our awesome vacation (thanks, Little Miss Contrary for the Victoria, Inner Harbour suggestion!), work events for both of us, gatherings with friends, weddings to attend, etc.  Before our vacation we were at the Consolidation point of the Dukan Diet, but the female half of this couple did not quite reach her goal (had 3-5 pounds to go).  We decided to move into the Consolidation Phase anyway to make eating during our vacation easier.  Gained a few pounds, but it was worth it.

After returning, our schedule's been quite busy and we don't have as much time to cook...so it's been a lot of eating at functions or eating out while on our way to a function, hence the decision to stay in Consolidation versus going back to Attack. We still try to make healthy choices but when you're at a dinner with a set meal, you either have to starve or eat what's on you plate.

After a month and a half of being in he Consolidation Phase (and not as much exercise as we should be getting) the female half of this couple actually lost two of the pounds she gained on vacation!  We'll be sticking with Consolidation thru the holidays and will most likely go back to the beginning of the diet in January to get down to our goal weights.

We still believe the Dukan Diet really does work...if you stick with it.  For our celebration meals we've been enjoying pizzas, Mexican food, sushi, etc and eating very low fat for our other meals with one Pure Protein day per week.  Once you get into your routine, it's not as bad as it sounds.

Dukan Quinoa Turkey Chili

Quinoa Turkey Chili

We loved this recipe, although we would have liked it a bit spicier.

This was our first time cooking with Quinoa...our friend fell in love with it and bought everyone a bag of Quinoa!  Quinoa cooks up nicely in a rice cooker and since we prefer our food less mushy we used 1 1/4 c. of chicken broth to cook our Quinoa instead of the 2 c. as suggested by many others.

We decided to try this recipe found on allrecipes.com and altered it to make it Dukan friendly.  Since this recipe does have Quinoa, this is a Consolidation and/or Stabilization recipe.  The male half of this couple got an extra treat - sliced avocado on his chili.

If you love spicy food, you may want to increase the amount of chili powder you use, leave in some of the seeds from the jalapeno and/or add a chipotle pepper in adobo sauce.  Next time we make this chili we'll probably use 1/2 c. to 3/4 c. of quinoa instead of 1 c.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 45 minutes

1 lb. lean ground turkey
1 c. quinoa
1 can chicken broth
1 red onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
1 T. chili powder
1 T. ground cumin
1 t. dried oregano
1 t. dried parsley
1 - 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
kosher salt and black pepper to taste
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped

In a rice cooker, add 1 c. Quinoa with 1 1/4 c. chicken broth (the rest of the broth will go into the chili).  Cook Quinoa (as soon as the rice cooker turns off, remove Quinoa and fluff).  While your Quinoa is cooking, brown your ground turkey.  Once your turkey is cooked, drain and remove turkey from pan.  Spray pan with olive oil spray and saute onions, garlic and jalapeno for approximately 5 minutes.  Add chili powder and ground cumin and cook for an additional minute.  Add crushed tomatoes, bell pepper, dried oregano, dried parsley, salt and pepper.  Simmer for 20 minutes.  Once your bell peppers soften, add back ground turkey, Quinoa and mix.  We added the remainder of the chicken broth at this time since it was a bit gummy for our liking.  Once chili is heated completely, mix in cilantro and serve.  We added a fried egg on top of our chili.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Low Fat Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes - Celebration Dessert

Low Fat Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes

We loved this recipe and so did our co-workers!

As mentioned in a previous post, we tried some low fat cupcake recipes from skinnytaste.com.   While we both love chocolate and thought the Low Fat Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes were wonderful, these Low Fat Pumpkin Spiced Cupcakes really screamed "Halloween".  We're thinking about making these for Thanksgiving also.

We made these without the icing since the cake mix has enough sugar in it.  If you are interested in trying the Pumpkin Spiced Cream Cheese Icing, here is the original recipe.

We couldn't find the Golden Vanilla cake mix here so we used French Vanilla and made a second batch of these with Yellow cake mix...both turned out just great.

RECIPE:
Makes 24 cupcakes
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Bake Time: 20-25 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit

18.25 oz Betty Crocker Golden Vanilla Super Moist Cake Mix*
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup canned 100% pure pumpkin
1 cup water


Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together then add to dry mix.  Mix well.  Fill cupcake liners 2/3s full and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes or until cooked.  


Enjoy...we sure did!

Low Fat Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes - Celebration Dessert

Low Fat Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes

We loved this recipe and so did our co-workers/friends.

Our new favorite low fat recipe blog is skinnytaste.com.  It's just amazing.  There are several recipes we want to try, it's just been such a busy month for us, we hardly have time to cook!  We did however try two of the low fat cupcake recipes and they were both great!

Before our vacation, we didn't quite make it to our goal, but we were pretty close.  We decided to move on to the Consolidation Phase to make eating while on vacation easier.  Next week it's back to the Attack Phase to lose the couple pounds we gained on vacation and try to lose the last few pounds we originally set out to lose.

We baked these cupcakes for a few reasons...it's part of our last celebration meal before starting attack again, tomorrow is Halloween and we're both taking a big batch of cupcakes to work and we just had to try these.

We made these without the chocolate glaze, but here is the original recipe in case you want to try the glaze too.

RECIPE:
Makes 24 cupcakes
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Bake Time: 20-25 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit

18.25 oz Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix

1.4 oz sugar free, fat free, instant chocolate pudding

1 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 1/3 cups water

Mix dry ingredients together.   Mix pumpkin and water together.  Add the pumpkin mix to the dry mix, mix well.  Fill cupcake liners 2/3s full.  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes or until done.  Ours took about 22 minutes.  

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Chinese Fish

Chinese Fish

We liked this recipe.

We found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  It's titled "Chinese Fish"...that's it.  The recipe is simple and has a very light taste.  We omitted the cooking oil and sesame oil from the recipe to make it Dukan.  Next time we'll try this recipe with Chinese vinegar instead of cider vinegar and a little more red pepper flakes.

The recipe calls for orange roughy, but we had some salmon in the fridge so we tried this with salmon.  A thinner fish would probably work better that our thicker cuts of salmon.

RECIPE:
Serves 4
Prep Time: 5-10 minutes
Cook Time: 8 minutes

4 pieces salmon filets or orange roughy
1 c. water
2 t. cider vinegar
2 t. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 t. Chinese five-spice powder
1/8 t. crushed red pepper flakes
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. ground ginger

Rinse and pat dry fish.  In a large non-stick skillet, cook fish for approximately 2 minutes (spray pan lightly with olive oil spray).  Turn and cook for 2 more minutes.  Add the other ingredients (pre-measure your dry ingredients).  Cover and simmer for 4 minutes or until fish is cooked.

Enjoy!

Dukan Pan Seared Soy Salmon

We both loved this recipe.

Pan Seared Soy Salmon

This recipe was tasty and very simple!   Every Sunday our local paper comes out with a 'Dining Out' section.  The restaurant reviews aren't that fabulous especially since the same restaurants get reviewed for months!  There are times we don't even bother to look at it since we know the chances are there won't be any new restaurants.  The one part we do like is Chef Chai's section...he contributes a recipe every week. Chef Chai owns a couple of restaurants here...the more popular one being 'Chai's Island Bistro'.

The food at Chai's Island Bistro is always good, but pricey.  If you're on a budget, it's not a place you'd frequent.  However, the Oahu Gold magazine (which can be found online) does have a 'buy one get one free' coupon which can be used on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays.  This coupon is a better deal than the coupon found on Chai's Island Bistro.

This week we decided to try Chef Chai's 'Pan-seared Soy Salmon' recipe.  We Dukan'd it and watered down our shoyu (soy sauce) and it was perfect for us.  We are listing our recipe here.  If you want to try it exactly like Chef Chai, use 1/2 cup of shoyu (soy sauce) and 2 teaspoons mirin.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 5 minutes, plus at least one hour to marinade
Cook Time: 3 minutes each side

1 - 6 oz. pieces salmon filet
1/4 c. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
1/4 c. water
2 t. sake
2 T. natural sweetener (we used Xylitol this time)

Rinse and pat dry salmon.  Place salmon into a large ziploc and in a pan (just in case).  Mix the marinade ingredients and pour over salmon.  Refrigerate at least an hour.   On medium high heat in a saute pan, spray a little bit of olive oil spray and cook each piece of salmon for approximately 3 minutes each side (depending on how thick your salmon is).

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Misoyaki Opah

We liked this recipe.

Misoyaki Opah

Misoyaki Butterfish is VERY popular here in Hawaii.  It's one of our favorite dishes to order at local Japanese restaurants.  Butterfish is also known as black cod.  A good piece of black cod will just melt in your mouth.

We had a pound of opah left in the freezer and decided to try a misoyaki recipe for our first time (we've always ordered it in restaurants, never made it at home).   We followed this recipe and although it's low in fat, we probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone in the Attack or Cruise phase.

We sauteed our fish, but next time we'll broil it which is how most of the local Japanese restaurants prepare their misoyaki butterfish.  We'll also be sure to use the belly part of the opah or another fatty fish for this recipe.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep time: 5 minutes plus marinading time - 24 hours
Cook time: a couple minutes for each fish

1 lb. opah (black cod or salmon would be great also)
1/2 c. white miso paste (sugar free, fat free)
1/2 c. natural sweetener
1/4 c. sake
1/4 c. mirin (sweet rice wine)

Mix the miso paste, natural sweetener, sake and mirin in a small pot, heat until smooth.  Let marinade cool a bit.  Rinse and pat dry fish, cut into "medallions".  Place fish in a large ziploc bag and place the bag in a foil pan (just in case).  Pour cooled marinade into ziploc bag and refrigerate for 24 hours.  Saute or broil your fish to your liking.

Enjoy!

Dukan Easy Chicken Marsala

We liked this recipe.

Easy Chicken Marsala

Well, the female half of this couple liked it - it was very easy to make.  Clean up was easy too!  It's a very simple tasting recipe, you can definitely "kick it up a notch" by adding other herbs which we may do in the future.  It's not going in our favorite recipe file, but it's definitely going in the "when we're too tired to make anything else" file.  :-)

We found this recipe a while ago....looked simple and the male half of this couple prefers tomato based sauces.  It's been so long, we can't remember which site we found it on, but we do know it was a low fat recipe website.

Since the male half of this couple doesn't need to lose weight, his treat with this dish is some mashed potatoes.  Next time we'll serve this on top Tofu Shirataki Noodles.  During Consolidation and Stabilization we would also add some parmesan cheese to this recipe.

RECIPE:

Serves 3-4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 30 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit

1 pound chicken tenderloins or chicken breasts (boneless, skinless)
15 oz or 14.5 oz can of herbed diced tomatoes
1/4 t. kosher salt
1/2 t. natural sweetener
2 T. marsala cooking wine
1/8 t. fresh ground pepper
8 oz. fresh mushrooms, sliced (we used baby portabellas)

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Place in a baking dish.  Place sliced mushrooms on the chicken.  We put our tomatoes in the blender since the male half of this couple doesn't like chunky tomatoes.  Mix in the rest of the ingredients and pour tomato sauce over chicken.  Cover tightly with foil and bake for 30 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit or until cooked.  NOTE: 30 minutes made our tenderloins dry, next time we'll bake the tenderloins for 20 minutes, then check to see if it's cooked.

Enjoy!

Dukan Asian Turkey Meatballs

We both LOVED these meatballs!

We have fallen way behind in our posting!  Partly because the female half of this couple has been fighting off a sinus infection.

We didn't expect to love these so much, but we sure did.  We just might be making these again very soon.

The male half of this couple tasked the female half of this couple with cleaning out the kitchen.  Our cupboards, refrigerator and pantry have been getting quite full.  We decided to start making things with only items we had in our kitchen and these turkey meatballs are one of those creations.

RECIPE:
Makes 16 large meatballs
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Bake Time: 15 minutes, 500 degrees Fahrenheit

Meatball ingredients:
1 lb. ground turkey, lean
2 t. minced onion, dried
1/4 c. oat bran
1 garlic clove, minced
1 t. ground ginger
1/2 t. kosher salt
1 T. shoyu (soy sauce), low sodium
1 1/2 T. white miso paste
1 T. sambal oelek (Korean ground chili paste)
3 green onions, chopped
1 egg

Dipping sauce ingredients:
2 T. shoyu (soy sauce), low sodium
2 t. sesame oil
2 T. lemon juice (or lime juice)
2 T. water (tap)

Mix all ingredients together.  Form into meatballs (you could also use this as a burger recipe).  Place on baking sheet, we sprayed the sheet with a little bit of olive oil spray.  Bake at 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes or until cooked through.

Mix your sauce ingredients together while your meatballs are baking.  It's not allowed during the Cruise Phase of the diet and we actually reduced the amount of sesame oil for our sauce.  Or you can eat it without dipping sauce.

Enjoy!

Dukan Stuffed Opah

We both loved this even though it had a little too much seasoning for us.

Stuffed Opah, it really did look better in person.

It's been a while since we've had stuffed fish.  As a child, the female half of this couple's mother, as well as so many local Hawaii mothers and fathers would stuff fish with mayonnaise, green onions, portuguese and/or chinese sausage along with some seasonings.  Mayonnaise is no longer an option for us, neither are the two sausages which are very fatty.  So, we decided to use this recipe as a base to make a Dukan version stuffed fish.

If you like a lot of seasoning, follow the recipe below, but it was a bit too strong for us, so next time we'll be cutting is almost in half.


RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Bake Time: 20-25 minutes, 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2 pieces opah (or mahimahi)

Stuffing mix:
2 T. fat free sour cream (more if you want a creamer stuffing)
1 - 3 T. oat bran (depending on what kind of texture you're looking for, we added 1 T at a time)
2 T. green onions, chopped
8 oz. imitation crab, shredded (because one of us is allergic to shellfish)
1 egg
1 T. Old Bay seasoning (use less if you don't like strong flavors)
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno, chopped (we removed the seeds, next time we'll use half the seeds for some heat)
Juice of 1/2 a lime (we squeezed the other half of the lime over the fish just before baking)

Mix stuffing ingredients.  Rinse and pat dry fish.  Cut pockets into fish as deep as you can.  Season fish with garlic powder (if you like strong seasonings you can use Old Bay on the fish also).  Stuff each piece with stuff (we also put some stuffing on top of the fish).  Place in baking dish, squeeze lime juice over fish.  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-25 minutes or until fish is done.

Dukan Buffalo Parmesan Turkey Burgers

We both liked these, but we weren't falling ourselves over them.  They were definitely juicier without the oat bran but we didn't use enough hot sauce.  If you don't like spicy, this is fine the way it is, if you like spicy food, definitely add more hot sauce.

These were our spicy miso turkey burgers, but the
buffalo ones looked the same.

Decided to throw this together...weren't sure how it would turn out.  Several months ago we saw a food show on the Travel Channel and the "original" buffalo wings restaurant in Buffalo, New York was featured.  Being lovers of buffalo wings, we just had to try it.  We really enjoyed it but since starting Dukan, all that butter is off limits and now that's we've gotten used to eating low fat, not sure we really would enjoy butter in that amount.

So, we found ourselves with a bottle of Frank's hot sauce, the one used in most copy cat Anchor Bar Buffalo Wing recipes.  Sounded like a great opportunity to try a buffalo turkey burger!  We found a 'Buffalo Burger' recipe on the internet and tweaked it a bit.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10-20 minutes (depending on how large your pan is, ours is small)

1 lb. ground turkey, lean
2 T. Frank's original hot sauce
1 t. dried minced onions
1/2 t. kosher salt
1/8 t. pepper
1/4 c. parmesan cheese, grated (from the can)
1/2 c. egg whites

Mix all ingredients together and form 8 patties.  Pan fry with a little bit of olive oil spray until juices run clear.

Enjoy!

Dukan Vanilla Lavender Oat Bran Muffins

Since the male half of this couple doesn't really care for muffins, etc...we're not requiring him to sample muffins :-)

These are our orange muffins, but the lavender ones look
the same except you can see the lavender in them.

These were great...if you like lavender that is.  Some people don't care for the taste of lavender.  Lavender buds are pretty expensive, but this recipe uses 1.5 to 2 tsp of lavender buds and the buds are very light in weight so it won't break the bank.

We used the same recipe we've been using for our oat bran muffins replacing the flavored extract with the lavender.  If you have an herb or coffee grinder, you may want to grind the lavender buds up to release more flavor.  We don't have a grinder, so we usually just rough chop the lavender buds.

RECIPE:
Makes 8-9 medium sized muffins
Prep Time: 10 minutes or less
Bake Time: 15-20 minutes (depending on your oven)

3/4 c. oat bran
1/4 c. wheat bran
2 t. baking powder
4 t. truvia or other natural sweetener
2 T. sugar free vanilla pudding mix (powder)
1.5 to 2 t. lavender buds (ground or rough chopped)
1 - 6 oz. nonfat vanilla yogurt
1 c. egg whites

Mix all dry ingredients together.  Add yogurt and egg whites and whisk.  Pour into muffin pan (we line ours with muffin liners).  Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 15-20 minutes or until done.

Enjoy!

Dukan West Lake Fish

We both liked this, but the sauce was too thick and sweet for us.

West Lake Fish

We weren't sure we would like this recipe...we never tried it or seen it any Chinese restaurant here, but since the female half is trying to stay away from four legged animals to try to finish up her Cruise Phase, we wanted to try different fish recipes.  This one seemed pretty different than most we found on allrecipes.com and most other recipe sites.

We set out to buy some sea bass from Whole Foods but it was $25.99 per pound!  Ouch.  Then we overheard someone else asking for some opah...mmm..we haven't had opah in so long.  Up until about 10-15 years ago, many restaurants in Hawaii offered opah as one of their fresh catches...now we hardly see it on the menu.  If you haven't had opah, it's a very mild flavored, medium textured fish.  Oh and the reason why we didn't go for a whole fish...we don't like picking out the bones :-)

If you don't like vinegar, you will not care for this recipe.  This does have a strong vinegar flavor which we both love.  Next time in Chinatown we will be picking up some black vinegar to see if it changes the taste.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 10-12 minutes

1 1/4 lb. opah (if you have thick pieces, you'll want to cut them down to approx 1 1/2 - 2" thick) or 1 - 2 lb. whole fish (carp, snapper, seabass or other white fish)
1 1/2 quarts water
4 to 5 ginger slices, thin
1/4 c. natural sweetener (next time we'll probably use 1/8 c.)
1/3 c. black vinegar or cider vinegar
2 T. low sodium shoyu (soy sauce)
2 T. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
2 T. cornstarch (but we are going to reduce this to 1 t. since we don't care for thick sauces)
kosher salt to taste

Rinse fish and pat dry.  Using a knife, slice two or three diagonal cuts into the fish.  Add the water and ginger to a wok larger enough to hold your fish.  Bring to a slow simmer.  Place fish in water and poach gently for 8-10 minutes or until cooked.  Remove cooked fish and drain, place fish on a warm serving platter.  In a bowl, mix natural sweetener, cider vinegar and soy sauce together.  Remove all but 1/2 c. of water from the wok, remove the ginger slices.  Add the vinegar mixture to water and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sweetener.  Turn heat down a bit.  Mix cornstarch into rice wine, pour slowly into the wok, mix constantly.  Remove sauce from heat, add salt to taste and pour sauce over fish.  Serve immediately.  This dish is served family style with diners removing pieces of fish from the platter.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Spicy Miso Turkey Burgers

We both loved these.

Spicy Miso Turkey Burgers

The female half of this couple wanted to make jalapeno burgers to use up the ground turkey we have in the freezer to make room for the fish filets we are picking up at Costco...but she left the jalapenos at her house.  Decided to scrap that idea and searched for a miso burger recipe.

Decided to try this recipe...added some spicy chili paste to it since we both love spicy food.  Also increased the amount of miso and oat bran.  Next time we'll add either some chopped oyster mushrooms (which we forgot we had) or chopped water chestnuts for texture.

RECIPE:
Serves 3
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes if you have a small pan like we do

1 lb. ground turkey (lean)
3 T. oat bran (omit if you prefer a juicier turkey burger)
3 T. finely chopped green onions
3 T. organic white miso paste
1 T. chili paste (sambal oelek)
1 T. sake
1/4 c. egg whites

Mix all ingredients, shape into patties.  We made 6, you can make mini burgers too.  Pan fry them or grill them until no longer pink.

If you want a stronger miso taste we would add another tablespoon of miso paste and if you want more heat, 1/2 T. chili paste should do it.

Enjoy!

Dukan Chicken Sofrito Stew

Mmmmm, is what we both had to say.

Chicken Sofrito Stew

We came across this recipe while searching for low fat recipes.  It needed just a little bit of tweaking to become a Dukan recipe.  We've missed using sofrito and this is a great simple recipe for sofrito.

It also calls for sazon and we love cooking with sazon.  Plus side to using sazon, it makes your food really yummy...down side to using sazon, it stains.  

Although we are trying to really watch our fat intake due to our upcoming trip, next time we will try this recipe using chicken thighs.  Also, it was a bit salty for us, maybe due to the crushed tomatoes we used versus using fresh diced tomatoes.

RECIPE:

Serves 4

Prep Time: 15-20 minutes

Cook Time: 30-45 minutes

For Sofrito:

6 green onions, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 -14 oz. can crushed tomatoes or 2 tomatoes, diced (the later is preferred)

1/3 c. red bell pepper, diced

1 tsp. ground cumin

2 t. kosher salt

1 packet sazon

For Stew:

1 lb. chicken tenderloins or 8 pieces chicken drumsticks, skin removed

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

6 oz. light beer

1 c. water

salt to taste

1/2 c. cilantro, chopped (ok to add more)

Heat saute pan, spray with a little bit of olive oil spray.  Add green onions and garlic, saute 2 minutes.  Add tomatoes and peppers.  Season with salt, cumin and sazon, mix then set aside.  Season chicken with salt and garlic powder.  Add chicken to pan allowing chicken to brown lightly on both sides.  Combine chicken with sofrito, then add beer, water and cilantro.  Adjust salt if needed.  Cover pan and simmer on low until chicken is cooked through, about 20-30 minutes.