Dukan Orange Chicken

Orange Chicken

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post.)

We loved this recipe.

Today is Chinese New Year and decided to make one of our favorite Chinese recipes...Orange chicken.  We love orange chicken but gave it up when we started the Dukan Diet since most restaurants here and a lot of recipes batter and deep fry the chicken.  The other day Closet Cooking posted a sauteed orange chicken recipe, we knew we had to try it.

We didn't make many adjustments - cooked without oil, used Thai chilis instead of dried chilis since that's what we had on hand and we didn't have any fresh green onions, so we made this dish with only the green part of the green onions.

This is another easy dish.  We don't have a grater or zester at the male half of this couple's house, so the orange zest took us a while, but other than that, this was very easy to prepare.  You can probably make orange beef, chicken or pork with this sauce too.  If you don't want to use honey, use a natural sweetener. Start with 1/2 t. and add more natural sweetener if you prefer something sweeter.  We prefer ours less sweet.

Stir fries cook up quickly, so you'll want to have your ingredients prepped ahead of time.  When working with Thai chilis, you may want to wear gloves.

RECIPE:
Serves 1-2
Prep Time: 15 minutes or so
Cook Time: about 5 minutes

3/4 lb. chicken tenderloins, rinsed and sliced thin
2 Thai chilis, seeds removed and cut into thin slices or 5 dried red chilis soaked in water
2  cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced (grated if you have a grater)
2 green onions, chopped, - white and green parts separated
1 T. orange zest

Orange sauce:
1/4 c. orange juice, freshly squeezed
1/4 c. chicken broth, low sodium
1 T. soy sauce
1 T. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry
1 T. rice vinegar (or white if you don't have rice vinegar)
1 T. honey (or your choice natural sweetener - start with 1/4 or 1/2 t. and go by taste)
1/2 t. sesame oil
1/4 t. pepper (white if you have it)
2 t. cornstarch

Mix your sauce ingredients together and set aside.  Heat wok over high heat, spray with a little bit of nonstick spray and stir fry chicken until almost done, set aside.  Spray wok again (or use a little bit of olive oil) and stir fry chilis, garlic and ginger (if you're using the white parts of your green onions, add those in now).  Stir fry for a minute, until fragrant.  Add back chicken, orange sauce and orange zest and cook until sauce thickens, just a couple minutes or so.   Serve as is or over jasmine brown rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Egg Foo Young

Egg Foo Young - his portion with rice

We loved this recipe.

Egg Foo Young is another easy Chinese recipe.  We've made Egg Foo Young before, but the deep fried version.  If you don't deep fry your Egg Foo Young, it's actually a very healthy dish.  We posting two sauce recipes here, one more in line with Dukan and the one we treated ourselves to tonight with mirin or a Japanese sweet cooking sauce and sesame oil.  The sauce recipe came from Closet Cooking's blog and hindsight, we could have used a natural sweetener in place of the mirin.  

We didn't add meat to our Egg Foo Young this time, but have used ham in the past.  Veggies are really up to you.  Add in what you like....your egg mixture should be fairly thick with veggies.  We always use bean sprouts in our Egg Foo Young, the rest of the veggies usually differ.  Your "meats" can be ground meat, chopped meats or seafood.  The recipes we've used in the past didn't call for ginger, but the ginger was a nice and tasty touch.  This recipe yields 4 Egg Foo Young the size of a regular pancake.  Two of these without brown rice was not quite enough for one person.

We didn't have cilantro, but you can definitely add cilantro to your egg mixture.  We forgot to add chopped green onions before serving.

RECIPE:

Serves 1-2 (depends if you're serving rice with this or not)

Prep Time: 10-15 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes (unless you have a really large frying pan and can cook 2 Egg Foo Young at a time)

One Egg Foo Young, no rice

3 eggs

3/4 c. bean sprouts, pick off the brownish parts

1/4 red onion, diced small

1 stalk celery, diced small

1/4 red bell pepper, diced small

1 clove garlic, minced

1" piece of ginger, minced

Regular Sauce:

1 c. chicken broth, low sodium

1 T. soy sauce

1 T. Chinese rice wine or dry sherry

1 T. mirin

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. water

1/2 t. sesame oil

Dukan Friendly Sauce:

1 c. chicken broth, low sodium

1 T. natural sweetener (best to go by taste, some people like their sauce sweeter than others)

1 T. soy sauce

1 T. Chinese Rice Wine or dry sherry

1 T. cornstarch

1 T. water

Mix your veggies together in a bowl with garlic, ginger and salt.  Set aside.  Bring chicken broth to a boil, reduce heat and simmer adding soy sauce, rice wine and mirin or natural sweetener.  Mix well.  Mix cornstarch and water, add it to the sauce and simmer until it thickens.  If your gravy is lumpy, use a whisk and your lumps should disappear.  Mix in sesame oil and reduce heat to low, cover and keep warm while you cook your egg mixture.

Mix eggs in a bowl large enough to hold the eggs and veggies.  Add salt and pepper to taste, do not over mix or whisk.  Squeeze excess liquid from veggies and add veggies to eggs.  Mix together, if you are using cilantro, add cilantro.  Heat your pan over medium heat.  You can either use nonstick spray or a little bit of olive oil to cook each egg.  Pour 1/3 c. of the egg mixture into the pan and cook until golden brown, anywhere between 2-4 minutes per side, depending on your stove.  If the egg starts to spread out, push it back in with your spatula to make your egg mixture nice and round.  Serve with sauce/gravy with or without rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Mahimahi Stir Fry

Mahimahi Stir Fry

We loved this recipe.

Monday is Chinese New Year and we decided we would make a few Chinese dishes this weekend.  We've saved several recipes from Rasa Malaysia's beautiful recipe blog but hadn't had a chance to try any of her recipes until today.   Some of her recipes are complex and some are very easy.  For our Mahimahi Stir Fry we decided to use Rasa Malaysia's Cashew Chicken recipe as a base.  We would have added some cashews but we haven't had any in the house since we started Dukan and we really don't miss it that much.

The stir fry sauce can be used with fish, chicken, pork, beef or just veggies.  We made Rasa Malaysia's recipe without the salt since we're watching our sodium intake, but it could have used 1/2 t. of salt or so.  We'll definitely make this again.

If you're in Cruise and are not bending the Dukan Rules, you may want to leave out the oyster sauce and sesame oil but your sauce will taste very different.  We added oyster sauce to our diet in Consolidation.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: less than 5 minutes

1 lb. mahimahi filet, cut into small cubes
1 t. baking soda
1/4 c. unsalted cashew nuts (optional)
1 small red bell pepper, cut into small square or triangular pieces
5 thin slices ginger
1/4 red onion, cut into small square or triangular pieces

Marinade:
1 t. corn starch
1/2 t. rice wine

Sauce:
1/2 T. oyster sauce
3/4 t. soy sauce
3 T. water
3 dashes pepper (white if you have it)
1/2 t. natural sweetener
1/2 t. rice wine
1/8 t. sesame oil
salt to taste

Place fish cubes in a bowl, sprinkle baking soda over the fish and rub in.  Let fish marinate for 15-20 minutes and then rinse the chicken thoroughly.  Be sure to rinse all the baking soda off.  Pat dry your fish.  Mix your marinade ingredients together and pour over fish.  Mix and let marinate for 15 minutes.

Mix sauce ingredients and set aside.  Have your veggies prepared, this dish cooks up really fast.  Heat wok over high heat, spray with a little bit of non-stick spray and stir fry fish gently until fish is half way cooked.  Remove from wok and set aside.  Spray wok again or use about 1 t. olive oil and stir fry ginger, peppers and onions until aromatic.  Add fish back to wok, then add sauce and gently stir fry until fish is cooked.  Add salt to taste.  If you're using cashew nuts, add those in, gently stir a few more times and serve.  If you're in Consolidation, this goes great with jasmine brown rice or you can eat it by itself like we did.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Chinese Steamed Fish

Chinese Steamed Fish

Kung Hee Fat Choy or Happy New Year!  January 23, 2012 is the Chinese New Year Day, the Year of the Dragon.  We don't live our lives by what fortune tellers say will happen each year, but it's always fun to read some of it, especially when you're with a bunch of girlfriends in a Feng Shui shop.  The female half of this couple is a Chinese American and her ancestors, like many other people's Chinese ancestors strongly believed in at least the characteristics of the Chinese Zodiac.

Last weekend our Chinese community held its annual Chinese New Year celebrations - a parade, numerous lion dances, two days of festivities, burning of firecrackers to chase away the bad spirits, etc.  The female half wanted to eat Chinese food to get into the spirit of things, but it seemed like 3/4s of the islands population wanted to do the same thing.  So, we decided to make our own Chinese Steamed Fish.

This recipe calls for more oil than is allowed on the Dukan Diet and if you're in Attack, it's definitely not allowed.   As long as you don't have this dish all the time or just as a celebration dish, you should be fine. We tried to find a recipe calling for the least amount of oil (some recipes called for 1/4-1/2 c. of oil).

This is an 'easy to make' and tasty dish.  We decided to poach our fish.  We should have cut our mahimahi filet thinner.  We really weren't planning on making this dish, so we didn't have whole green onions (only chopped ones) nor did we have fresh ginger.

RECIPE:
Serves 1-2 (if you're serving rice, this will feed two light eaters)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes or less

3/4 lb. mahimahi filet (you can use salmon, opah, etc.)

For poaching:
1/4 c. green onions, chopped (if you have whole green onions, you may want to cut them into 3" pieces)
1/4 t. ground ginger (if you have fresh, use a 3" piece sliced into "coins")
small bunch cilantro, rinsed
1 1/2 T. Shaoxing rice wine (Chinese rice wine) or dry sherry
salt and pepper

Cilantro topping:
2 T. cilantro, rough chop
1 t. sesame oil
2 T. soy sauce
1/2 t. natural sweetener
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper

Oil topping:
2 T. olive oil
2 green onions, chopped (or sliced into 3" slices)
1/4 t. ground ginger (if you have fresh, 2" piece sliced into very thin slices)

We poached our fish in our stir fry pan.  Place the "for poaching" ingredients in your pan with enough water to poach your fish.  Do not hard boil the fish or your fish may flake apart.  We poached ours for about 11 minutes and it was still very moist.  Just before your fish is done poaching, put the cilantro topping ingredients in a small microwavable bowl and microwave for approximately 30 seconds.  When your fish is done, place the fish only on a serving platter and pour the cilantro topping mixture evenly on your fish.  Dry your pan and add the 2 T. olive oil to pan, heat until you see smoke.  Add the green onions and ginger, fry for approximately 10 seconds.  Pour your oil topping over your fish evenly.  Serve immediately with or without brown rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Crock Pot Bolognese

Crock Pot Bolognese

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post)

We loved this recipe.

The male half of this couple loves pasta, especially tomato (not chunky though) sauces and we haven't had a whole lot of pasta (not even whole wheat pasta) since we started the Dukan Diet.  After finding this recipe on one of our favorite low fat recipe blogs, decided we should pull our crock pot and try it out.

It is relatively more work in the kitchen, especially since we've been making easy stir fry dishes and this is not a "throw everything in the pot and press start" recipe, but it was worth the labor.  It made enough for 5 servings.  We served this with a small Caesar salad.

We made a couple changes to the recipe - used whole wheat thin spaghetti, fat free half and half and turkey bacon.  We are posting the recipe without the carrots.  Oh and we only made half the recipe which was a tight fit in our 2 quart crock pot, but too little for our 4 quart crock pot.  A 3 quart would have been just right!  If you're in Cruise, you may want to omit the oil and have the sauce over Shirataki Tofu noodles.

FYI - Bolognese is traditionally served over tagliatelle, but we already had the whole wheat thin spaghetti.  Leftovers can be frozen.

For Skinnytaste's stove top version, click here.

RECIPE:
Serves 5
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 15-20 minutes on stove, then 4 hours in the crock pot

1 1/4 lb. ground turkey, lean (or 1 lb. lean ground beef - the local market here sells 1 1/4 lb. prepackaged)
2 oz. turkey bacon, chopped
1/2 T. olive oil (use cooking spray if you're in Cruise)
1/2 red onion, minced
1 celery stalk, minced
1/8 c. dry white wine
1 - 28 oz can crushed tomatoes
1-2 bay leaves
salt and pepper
1 T. dried parsley (if you have fresh, 1/8 c. chopped)
1/4 c. fat free half and half
whole wheat pasta (your choice, but if you're in Cruise, use Shirataki Tofu Noodles)

In a large pan, saute bacon over low heat about 4-5 minutes.  Add olive oil, onions and celery and saute for about 5 minutes over medium heat.  Increase heat to medium high, add turkey, season with salt and pepper and saute until browned.  Drain the fat, add the wine and cook until it reduces down, about 4 minutes.

Add turkey mixture to crock pot.  Add crushed tomatoes, bay leaves and a little more salt and pepper.  Cover and cook on low for about 4 hours.  Before serving, mix in the parsley and fat free half and half. Serve over hot pasta.

We like to cook our pasta about 10 minutes prior to plating our dinner.  We usually add a splash of olive oil, salt and garlic powder to the water and cook al dente. Do not rinse your pasta after cooking.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Vietnamese Noodles and Turkey Patties

Vietnamese Noodles and Turkey Patties

We loved this recipe.

It really was a simple dish and very light tasting.  We really think the carrots could be optional, we kept them in the recipe because the male half of this couple loves carrots.  We subscribe to email notifications from Katerina's blog, Daily Unadventures in Cooking and recently received her recipe for Bun Cha, a Vietnamese Grilled Pork Meatball dish.

We made a few changes and had it as a Dukan dish this past weekend.  We love the fish sauce broth served in Vietnamese restaurants, but always had it as a dipping sauce, never as a broth.  We weren't sure we would like THAT much fish sauce with our noodles but it was actually very tasty.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes
Cook Time: 15-20 minutes, depending on how many patties you can grill at a time

Patties:
1 lb. ground turkey, lean
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
3 T. fish sauce
2 t. natural sweetener
2 finely sliced scallion, white part only

Dipping Broth/Sauce:
1 c. water
4 T. natural sweetener
4 T. fish sauce
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 birds eye chili or something similar, seeds removed, sliced in half (suggest you use gloves)
2 T. fresh lemon juice
1 carrot

fresh mint and thai basil

2-3 pkgs, Shirataki Tofu noodles (we used spaghetti shaped because we had it, but next time we'll use angel hair shaped)

Boil noodles for 5 minutes in salted water.  Drain noodles.  Prepare the broth.  Add water, garlic and sweetener, chili and fish sauce to small saucepan.  Bring to a simmer, stirring until sweetener dissolves. Remove broth from heat.  Stir in lemon juice.  If you want to add carrots, peel thin strips of the carrot and add to the broth.  You'll heat the broth up again once you're ready to plate your dish.

Mix patty ingredients and form 12 small patties.  Because we used lean turkey, we flattened our patties to cook faster (less drying out).  We only have a Foreman's Grill which seems to dry out our turkey patties, so we pan fried them with some olive oil spray.  While your patties are cooking, rinse and pat dry your herbs.

We served ours like this - place warmed up noodles in a bowl, add patties on top of the noodles.  Pour in desired amount of broth, you don't need to have it drowning in broth.  Break apart herbs and sprinkle on your noodles/broth.  As we eat, we add more mint and basil.  Very refreshing.

Enjoy...we sure did!  This really is an easy dish to prepare!

Testing Out a New Template and Dessert

UPDATE: After checking out the advantages and disadvantages of  the 'Dynamic Views' template, we've decided to use a simple blogger template.  Main reason, gadgets like "Follow By Email" and "Favorite Blogs" lists cannot be added to the 'Dynamic Views' template...yet.  Will keep checking for updates to the templates!

We're somewhat caught up with our recipe blogging (meaning we have some scheduled posts in the queue) and decided to spend some time playing around with our blogger settings.  We'll probably try out  the 'Dynamic Views' template Blogger offers which means our blog could have a new look some time between today and this weekend.  In a nutshell, you'll get to scroll through our entire blog (no more 'Older posts' links' and you'll have seven choices on how to view our blog.  Sounds pretty neat.  If this template is too cumbersome for readers, please let us know!

Yesterday we posted that we've been trying to avoid desserts...then last night our visitors from the mainland invited us out for drinks at their hotel in Waikiki.  We hardly go to Waikiki (expensive parking, lots of traffic, tourist prices - same as most tourist areas in the world), but when we do, the drink the female half of this couple always got before Dukan was a virgin lava flow.  For those of you who have never had a lava flow, it's basically a glass drizzled with strawberry glaze and filled with pina colada.  Yikes...sugar and coconut.  We just had to have one last night!  It's been over a year since we've had a lava flow and although it was good, it was a bit too sweet.  It was a nice treat though!  Luckily we had a no carb lunch and a Dukan meal for dinner, so it wasn't too bad of a celebration :-)

Flamidwyfe's Dukan Curry Stir Fry

Flamidwyfe's Curry Stir Fry

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post.)

We loved this recipe.

Quick, easy, light, tasty and less than 5 ingredients...what's there not to love about Flamidwyfe's curry stir fry recipe.  The male half of this couple enjoys curry (more than the female half of this couple)...we knew we had to try this recipe.  We intended to make it with edamame since the male half loves edamame, but we didn't have time to remove the edamame from the pods before dinner.

We went easy on the curry this time since the female half of this couple isn't really into curry, but after tasting this, we'll definitely try it with more curry powder and different versions like Flamidwyfe's tofu curry stir fry or with the mahimahi our fish guy gave us.

Wait, let us tell you again, this is a super easy but very tasty dish.  The female half of this couple was so pleased with how little time it took to make a healthy, tasty dish the male half of this couple would like, she was ready to make different variations of this recipe the entire weekend!

RECIPE:
Serves 2 (he ate his with rice, if he ate this without rice, this would not be enough for us)
Prep Time: 10 minutes or so
Cook Time: Less than 10 minutes

1 package chicken tenderloins (from Costco, approx 3/4 lb?  will check next time we go to Costco)
1 stalk celery, cleaned and sliced approx. 1/8" thick, we usually slice ours at an angle
1/2 red onion, sliced (we slice thin for the male half of this couple)
1/2 t. curry powder (Indian), next time we'll use 1 t.
salt and pepper to taste
splash of olive oil

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  We like to slice our tenderloins into thinner slices at an angle.  It'll cook faster and dry out less.  In a wok over high heat, add a small splash of olive oil and chicken.  Add salt and pepper, then 1/4 t. curry powder (or 1/2 t. if you wish).  Stir fry until chicken is about 70% cooked. Add celery and onions.  Stir fry for a few seconds.  Add the remaining curry powder and stir fry until chicken is just done.  Serve immediately.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Diary - Where are we really at?

We're half way into January and we've made a few adjustments in our Dukan Diet.  Originally we wanted to go back to Attack (originally we had to do 4 days), then go through Cruise, etc.  That really only lasted two days (Re-Attack).  Then we convinced ourselves we could go back to Cruise, but wow, the female half of this couple just lacks the motivation to put us back into Cruise full time.  Instead, we're sort of mixing Cruise and Consolidation together.  

We still have one or two celebration meals per week, but are trying to avoid desserts.  We haven't added too many carbs back - just our celebration meal(s) and once a week whole wheat pasta or bread.  This past week the female half of this couple managed to have 3 PP days (not consecutive though) and will try to continue at least 2 PP days per week or more until she's reached her 20 pound goal.  Just a few more pounds to go! 

The male half of this couple still has to weigh himself, but as mentioned earlier, his weight is not the problem, it's his cholesterol.  

As for exercise, we both haven't gone back to regular weekly exercise schedules.  We've managed to get in a couple hikes since returning from vacation, our daily walks have gone to 2-3 times per week walks, no zumba, no tahitian dancing and for the male half, no volleyball yet.  We planned on hiking the Makapu'u Trail to look for whales on Sunday, but we were rained out.  Hoping to get that in soon...or at least before whale season ends.

Dukan Jalapeno Cheddar Turkey Burgers

Jalapeno Cheddar Turkey Burgers
These were juicier than they look in this pic

We loved this recipe.

The male half of this couple doesn't get excited about food...he eats to live, not lives to eat :-)  Once in a great while when asked the question "what would you like me to make for dinner?", he will suggest something.  It's usually spicy salmon bowls or a pasta dish.  This past weekend the female half said "ground turkey's on sale, what kind of turkey burgers shall we have?" and without hesitation the male half said "how about jalapeno turkey burgers?".  Whoa, he had an opinion about what we'd be eating.  It really only happens 2-3 times per year!

That was it, we had to make jalapeno burgers.  We actually had a can of diced jalapenos for a while, so we were happy to finally use it.  We also had a little less than a 1/4 c. of fat free cheddar cheese from our Christmas Eve Baked Rigatoni (forgot to post the recipe).  The recipe turned into Jalapeno Cheddar Turkey burgers.  The female half decided to do another PP day (and probably a couple more this week to get lose her vacation weight), the male half ate his with some rice.

This was another quick and easy recipe.

RECIPE:
Makes 8 burgers
Prep Time: 20 minutes or less
Cook Time: approximately 20-30 minutes (we have a small pan, cooked 2 patties at a time)

1 1/4 lb. ground turkey, as lean as you like
1 4oz. can of diced jalapenos, drained (ok to use fresh jalapenos also, approximately 2, with or without seeds depending on how much spice you want, we usually leave a few seeds in)
1/8 c. oat bran or less (we prefer less since it tends to dry the turkey out)
1 t. adobo seasoning
1 egg
fat free cheddar cheese, grated (we used approx. 1/2 T. in each burger, but you can use more or less)

Mix all ingredients together except the grated cheese.  Form eight balls of turkey.  Form a crater in each turkey ball, add the cheese in the crater and pinch the edges together forming a ball around the cheese.  (Reminds us of making dim sum).  Gently flatten your turkey balls into patties and pan fry or grill them.  We usually cook them for approximately 3-4 minutes on one side, flip them over and cook until the juices run clear.  Try not to overcook the burgers or they will dry out.  We used a little bit of nonstick spray also.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Leftover Salmon Omelet

Salmon Omelet

We loved this omelet.

It's not often we actually make breakfast since we usually have yogurt with oat bran and that's enough to fill us up.  This past weekend the female half of this couple said "shall I make some omelets?".  The usual response from the male half is "nah, yogurt is enough", but this time the answer was "yeah, sounds good!".

Next time we'll add some tobiko or flying fish eggs for texture.  We had some leftover Phoenix Salmon (a little less than 1/4 lb.) which wasn't quite enough for a meal so we decided to chop the last piece up and make an omelet out of it.

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post)

RECIPE:
Serves 2 (he usually eats a 3 egg omelet and I usually eat a 2 egg omelet)
Prep Time: 5-7 minutes
Cook Time: 5-10 minutes (depending on how you like your eggs done)

5 eggs
about 1/4 lb. of leftover salmon or less, chopped
1 T. green onions, chopped
1/4 t. adobo seasoning
1 T. grated parmesan cheese

Whisk eggs with adobo seasoning, we like to get air into the egg mixture for light fluffy omelets.   Turn your stove on to just above medium, spray heated pan with a little bit of nonstick spray.  Add your salmon (ours was cooked so we just needed to heat the salmon up).   Distribute salmon evenly around the pan, not too close to the edges.  Pour egg mixture into pan (we make one omelet at a time).  After the bottom has set a little, take your spatula and gently push in the edges while tilting the pan to allow the liquid eggs to flow underneath the omelet until there's no liquid left.  Gently flip your omelet.  Cook a few seconds.  Add cheese to the omelet and fold in half.  We usually cook our omelet until it's a bit underdone (not runny) since the heat will finish cooking the omelet by the time we serve it.  If you prefer your eggs very well done, cook the omelet in your pan until it is completely cooked.

The photo about is the female half's omelet...forgot to clean the pan before making the second omelet!

Enjoy!

Dukan Peruvian Chicken Stir Fry

Peruvian Chicken Stir Fry

We loved this recipe.

Another easy, peasy dish.  This recipe was posted on skinnytaste.com as a Peruvian Roasted Chicken dish, but we decided to use it as a stir fry dish - partly because already had a package of chicken tenderloins.  This still tasted great.  If you don't care for lime, you may want to use less lime or try it without the lime.

Almost made these on the Foreman Grill but we opted to go on a hike through Koko Crater Botanical Gardens instead and went with the quick and easy stir fry method instead.  Next time we make this will be with thighs on the Foreman Grill!

(NOTE: This is a scheduled post)

RECIPE:
Serves 2-3 (depends if you're eating this with something else)
Prep Time: 15-20 minutes (plus marinating overnight)
Cook Time: 10 minutes or less

1 lb. chicken tenderloins, sliced into thin slices for stir frying
4 oz. light beer
1/4 c. white vinegar
1 lime, juice of
2 t. ground cumin
2 t. garlic powder
1 t. dried oregano
kosher salt
paprika

Wash chicken, pat dry and slice.  Place in a large ziploc.  In a bowl mix beer, vinegar, lime juice, garlic powder, a pinch of kosher salt, cumin and oregano.  Pour marinade into ziploc with chicken, massage chicken, seal bag, place bag in a bowl or pan and place in refrigerator.  Marinate overnight.

Remove chicken from bag, discard marinade (as much of it as you can).  We stir fried ours in two batches in a very hot wok until chicken was no longer pink.  Do not overcook or your chicken will become dry.  Sprinkle a little paprika and a little more garlic powder before stir frying.  Serve immediately.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Lomo Saltado (Peruvian Beef Stir Fry)

Lomo Saltado

We loved this recipe.

Well, it was love at first taste with lomo saltado some 12 years or so ago.  There is a great Peruvian restaurant in Torrance, California called El Pollo Inka and in our opinion, they have the best saltado.  We've had it with beef and chicken.  It is so tasty, mmm.  It also has french fries...bad.   Several years ago we tried to cut out most carbs which led us to making this dish at home (also because there are no Peruvian restaurants here in Hawaii) without the french fries.  We can't get the taste exactly the same as El Pollo Inka, but it's still a great tasting dish, even without the fries.

For the past few weeks we've enjoyed following Flamidwyfe's blog and she's mentioned several times "beef with cilantro".  Mmm..that made "lomo saltado" pop into our minds.  We knew after the holidays and our vacation we just had to make it.  We usually make pollo or chicken saltado because we try not to eat a whole lot of beef, but eye of round was on sale at our local market and honestly, we were too lazy/tired to stand in the kitchen cutting off fat from boneless/skinless chicken thighs.  The eye of round on sale were very thin slices of meat, we probably won't go with these super thin slices again.  Cooks too fast and dries out easily.  Most recipes have you cut the meat into 1/4" thick pieces which works much better.

We always forget how tasty and EASY this dish is to make.  So, thank you to flamidwyfe for jogging our memory!

Notes:  We usually make this dish once or twice a year and each time we try a new recipe in hopes to come as close as possible to El Pollo Inka's recipe.  This dish is usually made with tomatoes, but as mentioned in previous posts, the male half of this couple doesn't care for tomatoes, so we left them out. If you want the tomatoes, cut your tomatoes into thinnish wedges and removes the seeds before cooking.

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

1 lb. lean beef, cut into 1/4" thick, 2" long pieces
1/2 red onion, cut into thin slices (or wedges - whichever you prefer)
4 T. cilantro, rinsed and chopped (leaves only)
a few drops of red wine vinegar
1 t. ground cumin
a pinch of cinnamon
1/2 t. black pepper
1/2 T. garlic, minced
1 aji amarillo (peruvian hot pepper or your choice of pepper, the peruvian one is about the size of a medium sized jalapeno), deseeded and sliced into thin slices
3 T. soy sauce, low sodium

In a bowl, toss sliced meat with 1/2 T. soy sauce, ground cumin and cinnamon.  Chop onions and peruvian pepper.  Over medium high heat, spray a wok with nonstick spray.  Saute garlic and half of your peruvian peppers for a minute or two.  Raise the heat to high and add beef slices.  Stir fry until meat is about 70% cooked.  Remove everything from wok and set aside (juice included).   Spray your wok with a little more nonstick spray and stir fry onions until barely soft.  Sprinkle between 4-8 drops of red wine vinegar (depending on your taste).  Continue to stir fry until vinegar evaporates (should only take a minute or less).  If you are adding tomatoes, remove the onions and repeat the onion process with the tomatoes.  If you are not adding tomatoes, add back the beef with all the juices, the rest of your Peruvian peppers and the remainder of soy sauce.  Stir fry for 30 seconds.  Add 2 1/2 T. cilantro.  Mix well and serve.  Garnish with remainder of cilantro.

His was served over white rice.  If you are making rice with this, add in a few drops of olive oil and a few dashes of garlic powder to your uncooked rice.

If making this with chicken, we usually cut our thighs into bite sized pieces, not strips.  We've also seen this dish made with shrimp.

Enjoy...we always do!

Dukan Phoenix Salmon

Phoenix Salmon

We loved this recipe.

It was light, tasty and easy to make.  Plus, we love salmon.   The salmon we used was frozen, from a slab of fresh salmon we bought a couple of months ago.  We washed it, dried it, wrapped it in paper towels and then in a gallon sized freezer ziploc.  We've seen most of our fishermen friends do the paper towel thing.

The original recipe came from the Electric Kitchen's website.  The Electric Kitchen was a cooking show sponsored by our electric company, Hawaiian Electric.  It is no longer on the air, but we've used quite a few local recipes from the site.  The recipe called for oil, but this is another recipe where the oil wasn't missed.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 8-12 minutes, depending on how well you like your salmon cooked and how thick your salmon filets are

1 lb. salmon filet (we cut ours into 3 pieces to fit all pieces into the pan at once)
1 t. garlic, minced
1/8 t. dried ginger (or 1 t. grated ginger)
1 t. cornstarch
1 T. white wine or whiskey
1/4 t. salt
dash of Chinese five-spice powder
dash of red chili pepper flakes
1/2 c. green onions, chopped

Rinse and pat dry your fish.  Mix the remaining ingredients together in a small bowl and set aside.  In a pan over medium heat sprayed with a little bit of nonstick spray, add salmon.  Turn salmon over after a minute and pour sauce evenly over your fish.  Cover pan, lower heat and cook until salmon is done to your liking.  We prefer ours just cooked and sometimes a little under done if the fish is very fresh.

If you're eating this dish with rice or quinoa, it would probably feed 3 people.  We used more than a pound of fish since it's what we had and we didn't want to leave a quarter pound piece in the freezer.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Vacation Pig Out, Hiking and a Necessary PP Day

Vacation photo collage

Happy Belated New Year everyone!

We are back and rested from our New Years vacation - and boy did we need the rest.  It was great catching up with family, meeting new friends and exploring trails on the neighbor islands.  We live on Oahu and while Oahu has a lot to offer, each island has something (plant, animal and/or site) unique to that island.

Each day we intended to read Dukan blogs since we do enjoying reading about everyone's progress but after being out from 7AM until about 10PM each day, we were just too tired to turn the computer on.   The weeks before our trip it was very rainy and windy around the islands.  We planned out what we wanted to see during our vacation and of course a plan b in case we were rained out.  Luckily the weather changed and we had blue skies almost the entire time!

We braced ourselves for non-Dukan meals since we were meeting up with family, attending a New Year's Eve bonfire and knew we'd sometimes be in relatively remote places with little to no food choices.  There were also the necessary traditional New Years foods we wanted to consume like mochi.  We allowed ourselves one mochi each even though we both love mochi and it really was enough.  Also had to try one of my uncle's homemade cookies, fresh baked.  Being on the Dukan Diet has helped with cravings and food splurges.  We no longer consume a lot of sweets.  We treat ourselves to one or two pieces once in a while and we're satisfied.  We don't even feel the need to have a sweet or dessert with every celebration meal.

It wasn't an entire week of pigging out though.  We did make healthier choices when we could and we hiked approximately 2-4 hours each day over all kinds of terrain.  Sometimes hilly, gravel paths.  Sometimes over lava beds.  Sometimes up mountains (not too steep).  We expected to gain at least five pounds each, but the hiking must have helped, the female half of this couple gained about two pounds on vacation and the male half lost two pounds!

By the last two days of our vacation we were really wanting to eat healthier.  This past weekend we did a PP day and it was great.  Made some quick, but tasty meals and looking forward to more.  We are also making it a point to hike more on Oahu.  It's not that we don't like to hike, we just never set aside the time to hike.

Dukan Easy Chinese Pork Stir Fry

Easy Chinese Pork Stir Fry with Rice (his portion, mine = no rice)

We loved this recipe.

Happy New Year everyone!  The holidays are over and it's time for us to get back on Dukan.  For us, it'll happen next week :-)

This recipe was quick, easy, and tasty!  You can make this dish with or without veggies, with pork, beef, chicken, turkey or fish.  We took a simple Kung Pao sauce recipe and made some adjustments.  We actually made this before New Year's but haven't had much time to blog.

We were pigging out over the holidays and didn't have many PP days during the last three weeks of December.  Yike!  Decided a PP day was a must and luckily we had two lean, uncooked pork chops left from one of our other meals.  The two small pork chops were actually not quite enough for a PP meal for two people, so we are adjusting the recipe to make a meal for two.  If you're having this with brown rice or quinoa or adding a lot of bulk veggies like broccoli, two thick cut pork chops should be enough for two people.

RECIPE
Serves 2
Prep Time: 45 minutes (30 of those minutes are for marinating)
Cook Time: less than 10 minutes

3/4 - 1 lb. lean pork chops (no bone), thinly sliced (slice at an angle)
2 Thai red chili peppers or something similar (deseeded and cut into thin strips)
5 thin slices of fresh ginger (skin removed)
2 garlic cloves (we used minced since we have the Costco bottle or you can thinly slice your garlic)
1 stalk green onion, chopped (next time we'll probably do two inch strips)

Marinade:
3 t. cornstarch
2 t. soy sauce
1 T. Shaoxing rice wine or your choice of substitutes

Sauce:
1 1/2 T. soy sauce
1 t. natural sweetener
1/4 t. black vinegar (or regular white vinegar)
2 T. water
1 t. cornstarch

Rinse pork slices and pat dry.  Mix marinade ingredients, we usually mix ours in a ziploc baggie, then add meat, mix again (using your hands on the outside of the baggie), then refrigerate for 30 minutes.  Mix your sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.  Heat up a stir fry pan (high heat), spray a little bit of  non stick spray (we use a coated nonstick stir fry pan), cook marinated pork until 70% cooked.  Set aside.  Clean pan, spray with non stick spray again.  Add ginger and garlic to pan, stir fry for a few seconds, then add red chilies.  Stir fry until it is aromatic (about 20-30 seconds).  If your pan starts sticking, spray a little more non stick spray.  Add pork back to pan and continue to stir fry.  For a celebration meal or during consolidation, add cashew nuts or peanuts.  Add in sauce and continuously stir fry until pork is coated with sauce.  Turn heat off, add green onions, stir and serve immediately.

Enjoy...we sure did!