Dukan Stuffing - REPOST

Dukan Stuffing

REPOSTING - 11/21/2012 - Aloha from Hawaii and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  We're reposting this recipe because it was a lifesaver last Thanksgiving.  We used Janice's recipe as a base and added some touches from our mother's recipe to give it some additional flavor.  Not sure we'll have time to make Dukan stuffing this year, but who knows!

It's been quite a year with illnesses, fortunately a few trips to the mainland, a few deaths in our family and we just got back from a scouting trip this week...that's partly why we didn't have time to get our butts in gear to make some Dukan Stuffing.  Interestingly, in the past, stuffing was something we always craved.  We didn't really eat it any other time of the year, but we so looked forward to stuffing and gravy at Thanksgiving.  This year, we find ourselves with less sugar cravings and surprisingly less carb cravings... hooray!   Right now we don't even feel like we need a stuffing replacement.  

Shortly before our scouting trip to the mainland, the female half stuck to the diet (Attack and Cruise) and lost a few pounds.  We hit Consolidation right when we left on our trip and of course, the diet sort of went out the door.  We did get to hike a couple of days (a couple of miles each time) and we tried to make healthier choices when possible but we ate more spinach and tomato wraps than we had wanted to.  2 pounds were gained during the fabulous scouting trip and now we've gone back to Cruise to try to get closer to our goal.  We're getting in our daily exercise too.  Just gotta jump start our weight loss again.  

Wishing all of us luck during the "Season of Eating"!  Happy Thanksgiving!

We loved this recipe!  Thanks, Janice!

We used Dukanitout.com's stuffing recipe with some additions to make it similar to the female half of this couple's mom's stuffing recipe.  Oh, Thanksgiving morning always smelled so yummy.  We looked forward to mom making her stuffing which started with an entire stick of butter, included various fresh herbs, water chestnuts and portuguese sausage.  Now that we're watching what we eat, we assumed we would be eating a tiny portion of stuffing this Thanksgiving, but with this recipe, we can now have a decent serving of stuffing!

The one mistake we did make, we forgot to chop the croutons smaller after baking them...but the taste is there and we are looking forward to our Thanksgiving batch.  Note: we didn't have mushrooms and olives which normally went into our Thanksgiving stuffing...so that will definitely go in this coming Thursday.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
Prep Time: 30-45 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

1 batch Dukan Cheddar Bread croutons (we used Becky's bread recipe with Janice's jalapeno sub for the dill.  After you bake your bread and let it cool, cut them up into crouton sized cubes.  Bake them on a cookie sheet at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, then let them cool.  Spray them with a little bit of olive oil spray before baking.

2 stalks celery, diced small
1/2 red onion, diced small
3 water chestnuts, diced small
6 oz. low fat turkey sausage (any low fat sausage would work), chopped
1/2 t. dried rosemary
1/2 t. dried thyme
1 T. fresh parsley
kosher salt and pepper to taste
1 c. low sodium chicken broth
1/2 c. oat bran
1 egg

(add mushrooms and olives both chopped if you like)

Saute celery, onion and chestnuts (mushrooms and olives if you choose to add them) until veggies are soft.  Add sausage, cook for a couple minutes.  Add herbs, salt and pepper.  Mix and let cook for a couple minutes.  Add chicken broth, then croutons and oat bran.  Let cook for a couple minutes.  Add the egg, mix well and cook for a couple minutes.  Transfer stuffing to pan, cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes (uncover for the last 5 minutes).

Enjoy..we sure did!

We're Still Here :-)

We are still here...haven't cooked a whole lot since the beginning of October.  October ended up being busy with a couple family members passing away.  It was time to tend to family matters and of course eat with the ones who flew in for funeral preparations.

The beginning of October was the beginning of our Cruise stage.  For the 4 days of Attack we did in September, life was calm...we breezed through it with no problem and lost the three pounds the Dukan chart said we would.  We planned our meals out carefully, did not cheat and exercised daily.  That's where we actually didn't follow the diet.  Instead of sticking to the 20 minutes of walking per day during Attack, we went ahead and did 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day. Our bodies need that extra exercise to lose the weight.  The first couple of Cruise days went just fine, then tragedy struck our family.  We had every intention of sticking to the diet, but could only handle some.  Our eating habits were in line with the diet for the first half of October although we ended up eating a lot of poke and already made items.  Exercise however went out the door.

Once the out of town family started arriving, so did the family style dinners.   Still, we tried to make the best food choices available, but still no exercise.  Looking back at our daily food and exercise chart, looks like we only exercised 2 days in October...oooops.  After the last family member left the island, we were amazed we only gained a pound, but weren't surprised our weight loss had stopped.

It took a few days of being back on the diet and exercise plan to finally start losing a half a pound here and a half a pound there.  We're happy to report a we are sort of back on track.  Next week according to our Dukan chart, we should be moving on to Consolidation but we are still a few pounds away from meeting our next goal.  Last year around this time we were moving into Consolidation for the first time and again, we were a couple pounds shy of our goal...like many others, once we moved into Consolidation, we continued to lose weight.  We're planning on soi ng the same, moving on the Consolidation even though we haven't quite met our goal.  We may even try adding two days of PP here and there.

We did start cooking again this past week and hope to post recipes soon.  They were simple dishes...one was a cold style Shabu Shabu and the other a nabe recipe.  Both made with lots of veggies and homemade broth.

Hope everyone is doing great on the Dukan diet!