Hau'oli Makahiki Hou! (Happy New Year)

Kadomatsu display and Kagami mochi

We wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!  Thank you to everyone who visited our blog and we hope our recipes were useful to you :-)

We spent this weekend baking and prepping for New Year's Eve.  As mentioned in a previous post or two, New Year's Eve is a big thing here in Hawaii with our various customs and traditions.  One would be consuming mochi or sweet rice cakes.  At one time our family actually pounded mochi, displayed the traditional Kagami Mochi, bought a kadomatsu or two, burned long strands of firecrackers at midnight to ward off evil spirits and ate Ozoni on New Year's Day.   Today, we still buy our kadomatsus, but now we buy our Kagami Mochi display and as the older generation passes, our display becomes smaller and smaller.  We have a new fireworks ban, banning certain fireworks, so as a family we've decided to just enjoy fireworks on the television.

This year since New Year's Eve landed on a Monday, we took advantage of the weekend and baked 3 pans of mochi - chocolate and custard.  Yes, we cheated, we sampled the mochi (eeek!).  We also made some kamaboko dip.  The male half who is from the mainland never even heard of kamaboko dip but he liked the dip!  Kamaboko is a fish cake and we ate tons of it growing up...every New Year's Eve every party we went to had kamaboko of different colors and shapes cut up as an appetizer.  Both of these recipes are not Dukan or Paleo friendly, but we may post them as Celebration Recipes.

Every Thursday we usually plan out our weekend meals and shop for our weekend groceries.  Unless we are meeting friends on the weekend for dinner, we generally eat at home and is the easiest time for us to eat healthy.  As mentioned in previous posts, once the female half of this couple reaches her weight loss goal, we will be easing into a Paleo or Caveman-like diet.  The more research we do on the internet and on prices of organic, natural products here in Hawaii and on Amazon, it's looking like we will be moderate Paleo people.

With that in mind, for the rest of our Cruise Phase, we are sticking to Dukan, but if our Dukan recipe can easily be Paleo'd without compromising Dukan Rules, we have been Paleo-ing our recipes too!  Once we get to Consolidation (around February of next year), we'll stick to the Consolidation Rules but add in the Paleo rules -- mainly the no grains rule.  The no processed foods will probably need to be less processed foods for now.

This weekend, we made 4 meals -- all were Dukan Cruise Phase recipes and were Paleo'ish.  The male half actually has three meals with no grains, yay!  He actually could have had all his meals without grains, but we didn't want to waste the brown rice and mashed potatoes given to us.  (BTW, our other meals, like breakfast I don't count as "made meals" since most times we have yogurt with oat bran, Appelgate natural deli meat, low fat cheese with Dijon mustard and steamed broccoli on PV days.)

The results, a pound loss (we only exercised once this weekend, wonder how much more we could have lost had we stuck to our aerobic exercise), no bloated tummies for either of us, no sluggish Kanak Attacks (a local saying after you eat a heavy meal and you just want to sleep or lay around).

Again, Happy New Year to everyone and here's wishing all of us a healthy 2013!

Back to cooking this weekend

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and planning for a fun New Years.  We took a break from the kitchen this week - we baked and cooked up until Christmas night and are pooped out.  We have two more holiday gatherings -- one tonight and actually several on New Year's Eve.

Not sure what it's like on New Year's Eve in your part of the world, but New Year's Eve here is really a mix of traditions from various cultures.  Our island used to be big on fireworks...as in, individual households burning hundreds (and for some, thousands) of dollars worth of fireworks, tons of traditional and non-traditional foods being served at New Year's Eve parties like plates of sashimi or raw fish, traditional Japanese sushi rolls (non traditional sushi too), mochi or a sweet glutinous rice dessert in all kinds of shapes and flavors, etc etc.  Not too many healthy things on the menu!

On Christmas we managed to eat sort of healthy -- we made a Zucchini Lasagna which was great but very cheesy, skipped the bread and dessert.  We'll post that recipe in 2013.  We have our Whole Wheat Baked Rigatoni recipe ready but I forgot to download the pics from my camera, so that will have to wait a few more days.

This weekend we're hoping to make a couple dishes using won bok or Chinese cabbage (also known as Napa cabbage) and takenoko or bamboo shoots.  With New Years coming up, Marukai, our local Japanese food store has a lot of these items on sale.   We'll be making some non-Dukan and non-Paleo items for the 4 New Year's Eve gatherings we are attending -- debating on whether or not to post those recipes.

Once a week we've prepared a Paleo meal -- yes, the male half of this couple survived no-starch meals, hooray!  In place of the starch he usually eats, I usually increase the amount of vegetables he gets.  No complaints from him yet :-)  Starting January, we'll ease into 2 or 3 no to low starch meals and hopefully will be grain free within a month or two...hopefully.

We've continued to research the Paleo diet -- quite a few of the recipes will have to wait since I am still trying to lose weight and don't want to add coconut milk, any kind of flour, and too much fat to my diet.  It's looking like we'll do a modified Paleo diet to being with.  I can't seem to get the male half of this couple to commit 100% but he did say if he starts to feel like a 27 year old again, then he'll be sold on Caveman eating :-)

That's our update for now.  Hope everyone has a fun and safe New Year's Eve!

Product Review: Victoria All Natural Marinara Sauce

Photo from the Victoria
Fine Foods Website

For the male half's birthday, we made a Baked Rigatoni.  We had a ton of baking to do that night so making our own Mushroom Marinara was out of the question.  The other night, luckily I happened to take a peek at the marinara sauces at Costco expecting to only find sauces loaded with junk stuff but was quite happy to find Victoria's All Natural Marinara Sauce.

It's Dukan friendly on PV days and Paleo friendly!

We decided to use the sauce as is although we were tempted to add some balsamic vinegar and fennel seeds to add some additional flavor...we really wanted to get the true taste of this marinara the first time around.  A note about balsamic vinegar, most websites will tell you balsamic vinegar is not Paleo friendly, but many still use it in moderation...that's the key, in moderation.  We would have used about a teaspoon for one jar...I think that qualifies as "in moderation" :-)

We both enjoyed Victoria's All Natural Marinara Sauce.  For us, it had that slight tang/zest to it...still debating whether or not to adjust the flavor with balsamic vinegar.  It's definitely a nice alternative to making your own when you don't have the time.  We'll be stocking up on this sauce and hope Costco continues to carry it.

We'll be using the second jar for Christmas...our first attempt at making a zucchini lasagna!  Oh and the recipe for our Celebration Baked Rigatoni meal will be posted soon after Christmas.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas if you're celebrating Christmas :-)

Frittata Crazy: Dukan Broccoli Bacon Egg White Frittata

This photo is of our Rotisserie Chicken Egg White Frittata
but the Broccoli Bacon one looked similar.

We loved this recipe!

Well, I started to go frittata crazy this week...the male half of this couple scarfed half of the frittata down with no problem but I got the look -- the "need variety" look.  So, we'll be giving frittatas a rest for a week or so :-)

This recipe is really the same base recipe we used for our Dukan Rotisserie Chicken and Broccoli Frittata -- we used bacon instead of rotisserie chicken and no basil.  We treated ourselves to the bacon...trimmed some of the fat from the bacon and got rid of most of the bacon grease after cooking the bacon.  We are very new to the Paleo diet and are still learning -- as mentioned before, there are different versions and we're trying to figure out our Dukan - Paleo plan for 2013 -- that said, this actually turned out to be a Paleo recipe too!  We're still in Cruise (Dukan) but we went ahead with the bacon (a.k.a. more fat than we probably should consume during Cruise) anyway.  We're listing this as a Cruise recipe too, you can always use turkey bacon instead.

We didn't take any photos because the steps were almost the same as our Dukan Rotisserie Chicken and Broccoli Frittata and it looked very similar.

RECIPE:
Serves  2 (no starch/carbs served with the Frittata)
Prep time: less than 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15-20 minutes

3 slices of bacon, chopped (some of the fat trimmed and let it sit at room temperature for a few minutes before frying)
1 1/2 c. broccoli, chopped into small pieces
1/4 sweet yellow onion, diced small
2 button mushrooms, we minced ours, but thin slices will work too
3/4 c. egg whites
1/3 c. water
1/4 c. or less mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 t. adobo seasoning

Fry bacon over medium heat until cooked (depends on how you like it, we would have rather cooked ours until crispy but we had a lot of holiday baking to do this night).  Remove most of the bacon drippings (we reserved ours for future Paleo meals).  We left approx 1/2 T. of bacon drippings in the pan.  Add onions and mushrooms, saute until tender.  Add broccoli, cover and steam for approximately 2 minutes (less if you want crunchier broccoli and longer if you like soft broccoli).  In a bowl, mix egg whites, water, cheese and adobo seasoning, set aside.  Remove cover, add bacon back, mix everything up.  Add egg white mixture, cover and let your frittata cook until eggs are done -- ours took approximately 5-6 minutes.  Cut into wedges and serve.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Rotisserie Chicken and Broccoli Egg White Frittata

Rotisserie Chicken and Broccoli Egg White Frittata

We loved this recipe!

This was very tasty.  It was a "use what we have" type of recipe.  Opened the fridge and rummaged through the drawers.  We still had half a Costco Rotisserie chicken left from our Baked Pasta recipe, we were actually able to use it in 4 meals.

This was our lunch on Saturday -- it was nice and light.   I tried to wash dishes while the frittata cooked which led to me burning the frittata slightly, but it didn't have that yucky charred taste, it was actually good!  We used the male half's frying pan which isn't non-stick.  I'm really gonna have to bring my pans over!

PALEO NOTE: We're new to making frittatas, so we've never tried it without cheese.  This diet is pretty close to a Paleo diet -- use eggs from free range chickens, try it without cheese or find a raw cheese, use bacon drippings or the olive oil instead of non-stick spray and you've got a Paleo recipe..oh and you'll have to make your own adobo seasoning too.   After we use our adobo seasoning up, we'll be mixing our own.  So, we're calling this a Paleo - ish recipe.  Depends on who you're listening to re: the Paleo diet, some allow small amounts of this and that.

RECIPE:
Serves 2 (with no starch)
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: approx 15-20 minutes

3/4 c. egg whites
1/3 c. water
1 1/2 c. broccoli, chopped into small pieces
3/4 c. rotisserie chicken, chopped into small pieces
1/4 sweet onion, diced
2 button mushrooms, minced (you can slice them thinly)
2 fresh sweet basil leaves, chopped
1/4 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/2 t. adobo seasoning

In a medium size frying pan, saute onions and mushrooms over medium heat in a little bit of olive oil or non-stick spray.  Mix your egg whites, water, adobo seasoning and cheese together.  Set mixture aside.

Add broccoli, cover your pan and let your broccoli steam.  We let it steam for less than 2 minutes because we prefer our broccoli with a crunch.  Add chicken and basil, cook for 30 seconds or so.  Pour egg mixtures evenly over the chicken mixture.  Cover and let your eggs cook until done, we cooked ours for about 8-10 minutes.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Our First Paleo Meal

We didn't plan this out, it just so happened I had some unexpected errands to run after work and the male half worked late.  While killing time waiting for him to finish at the office (in local terms - 'pau work') I decided to go to Costco to pick up the last of our holiday baking items.

I ended up picking up some ahi or tuna poke for dinner since I knew we'd be getting home late and I had at least 5 hours of baking ahead of me.  As we drove home I decided I would just feed the male half of this couple some poke (about 1/2 a lb) and a big plate of microwaved steamed broccoli and we'd have a Paleo meal!

No complaints from the male half about dinner but I was busy in the kitchen baking and I'm sure he got hungry before bed because I sure did!  Halfway through dinner I said "this is our first strict Paleo meal"...he said "yes, it is".  Other than that, no other comments from him...but he isn't one to spew out thoughts right away...he thinks about it and a lot of times the next day he'll share more.  So, I'm looking forward to hearing his thoughts on whether he liked having no starch with his meal.

I was so busy in the kitchen, I didn't even take pics of our dinner plates!

Dukan Update: Since we are still trying to lose weight (well, one of us is), our meals are Dukan first, Paleo if it can be.  We've both dropped another pound...yay!  I'm surprised since neither of us has had time to exercise since Sunday...three more days of baking and the holiday baking will be over.  Christmas should be interesting...we're determined to stay in Cruise on Christmas at our family dinner -- hopefully we'll have the will power to resist.  If I have energy, I will definitely make us some Dukan snack or dessert to munch on while everyone else is digging into sugar loaded desserts!

Celebration Side Dish: Ranch Mashed Potatoes

Ranch Mashed Potatoes

We loved this recipe!

Wow, was it good and it was a hit at the holiday party we attended this weekend.   It is definitely not Dukan or Paleo so I only tasted the mashed potatoes to be sure it had enough seasoning but the male half who loves mashed potatoes said it's one of the best he's had...and he doesn't usually get excited about food.

This recipes feeds a lot.  I didn't measure it since I started it too late and rushed getting it prettied up for the holiday gathering.  If you're making this for a gathering, it's perfect, but for a family of 4 or 6, cut the recipe in half and you'll still have lots of leftovers.

Here's the original recipe from Cooking Light...we ended up doubling the seasonings to make it more flavorful and we prefer our mashed potatoes creamier.  The original recipe makes a dryer mashed potato.  If you prefer a milder tasting, dryer mashed potato, start with the original recipe, then add more seasonings.   The recipe below is our doubled seasoning recipe.

The dryer mashed potatoes are easier to work with when making the little scoops, but the recipe below did hold together.  We used a mini scooper.

RECIPE:
Prep Time: Seems like it took me over 1/2 an hour to clean the potatoes (removing eyes and other unattractive markings) and chop the green onions.  Plus another 10-15 minutes to mash and mix.
Cook Time: 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender

13 cups (approx 4 lbs) of red potatoes, cleaned and cubed
3/4 c. sour cream
1/4 c. green onions, chopped (only the green part)
1/2 c. reduced fat buttermilk (start with 1/4 c. until you find a consistency you like)
3 T. butter, softened
1 1/2 t. kosher salt or sea salt
1 T. fresh basil (because we had it on hand, you can use dried too, if using dried, try 1 1/2 t.)
1 1/2 t. oregano
1 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. pepper
1/2 t. dried dill

Place cubed potatoes in a pot or dutch oven, cover with water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Drain potatoes then put potatoes into a large bowl.  Add remaining ingredients and mash with a masher or a couple of forks.  Mash to your desired consistency.  We like ours with little chunks of potato still in it.

Enjoy...everyone here did!

Dukan Baked Pasta

Baked Whole Wheat Penne

We loved this recipe!

Baked Nasoya Fettucini with Marinara

We made two different kinds of pasta -- whole wheat penne in one pan for the male half of this couple and Nasoya Fettucini Pasta in the other for me.  I took a bite of the whole wheat penne version and I must admit it just tasted better.  The dish baked well together.  With the Nasoya Fettucini Pasta, baking the dish did nothing to it...it was still a bit runny.  I thought the baking would dry up some of the liquid, but it didn't.  If we only had the Nasoya version, I would have been perfectly happy with it.  The sauce is still yummy and after eating a plate full of Nasoya pasta, you don't feel stuffed and bloated.

The male half of this couple is not trying to lose weight...as a matter of fact, often times he loses weight without even trying...he's very thin -- so I added more cheese to the top of his pasta.

Note -- we used the Nasoya Fettucini Pasta because we already had it in the fridge, but the macaroni shirataki pasta would probably work better.   Next time we make this, we'll probably chop up the shirataki noodles if we can't get our hands on the macaroni shaped ones.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-8, depending on which noodles you go for
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes (not including time needed to make marinara)
Cook Time: Pasta cook time, plus 30 minutes in the oven (not including time needed to make marinara)

Before mixing

1 1/2 c. cubed rotisserie chicken, skin and fat removed (we were at Costco)
1 recipe of our Dukan Mushroom Marinara
1/2 c. low moisture mozzarella, shredded
1/4 c. parmesan cheese or romano cheese, grated
4 bags of Nasoya pasta
(if you want to do a half and half like us, we used 2 bags of Nasoya Pasta and 1/2 a box of whole wheat penne or during Consolidation you can use all whole wheat penne)

Prepare pasta -- for the Nasoya Pasta, we like to boil them in salted water for about 4-5 minutes, then drain and dry your pasta as much as you can.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mix pasta, marinara, parmesan and most of the mozzarella cheese together reserving some mozzarella cheese for the top of your pasta.  Transfer pasta mix into a pan or two pans.  The half and half version fit into 2 - 9" foil pans with some room to spare.  If I were doing this all in one pan, I would probably use a 9x13 pan since that's all we have!

Sprinkle remaining cheese over pasta and bake uncovered for 30 minutes.  You really don't have to use this much cheese, it is stretching the Dukan rules, but we ate it and still lost a pound over the weekend!

Enjoy...we sure did!

Back and Forth

The male half of this couple and I are still going back and forth on how Paleo we're going to live.  It's mind boggling all the information out there and there are different takes on the Paleo - Caveman Diet.  Some say don't eat this, while others say you can eat it in moderation, etc etc.  Today I found a blog which said you can have beer and wine in moderation...I'm not showing that to the male half.  I would prefer he believe he has to give up beer except for once in a while cheat days ha ha!

We'll need to make some decision on what we're giving up, what we'll consume in moderation, and how much we'll want to spend on organic products.  In general, we would like to eat more veggies,  phase out wheat/grains, phase out as many processed products as we can afford to but we've already looked into grass fed beef and free range chicken and know that will be a once in a while thing.

We have a couple recipes scheduled to post this week, but this weekend other than a cheat meal for the male half's birthday, we probably won't have time to cook...it's our holiday baking weekend...we'll be baking from Friday night -- all day, all night!

We'll try to remember to take photos of our Candied Pecans made with Xylitol.  We were eating these (in small amounts) during Consolidation.

Dukan Mushroom Marinara

We loved this recipe!

We've had this recipe for a while now...we wrote it down on a piece of paper, threw it in our old recipe box intending to eventually type it up -- of course we can't even remember where we found it!  The male half of this couple LOVES pasta with marinara -- doesn't have to be anything special, but the marinara has to be flavorful.  He really enjoyed this one (even though it isn't exactly like the one from Island Subs and Burgers here in Manoa).

We used this marinara in a baked pasta dish -- it's my practice run for the male half's upcoming birthday dinner.  He dislikes going out to eat, so he always requests Baked Ziti for his birthday.  This marinara may end up in our Birthday Baked Ziti dish!

We recommend making this sauce a day before.

This is a Dukan'd recipe.  It is almost Paleo -- we already had crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce in our kitchen, so we did not use organic -- so we're calling it Paleo - ish!

RECIPE:
Sorry, I forgot to measure how many cups of sauce this made, but we mixed it with pasta and filled two - 9" foil pans to the top with the pasta/marinara mixture.
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: at least 2 hours 5 minutes

2 tsp. olive oil (or nonstick spray)
1/2 sweet yellow onion, diced
6 oz. button mushrooms, minced (we minced them because the male half doesn't like the texture)
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 - 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 - 15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. balsamic vinegar
1 T. fresh parsley, chopped
1 T. fresh basil, chopped small
1 t. dried oregano
1 t. fennel seeds, crushed
1 t. natural sweetener (we used Xylitol)
1 pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
kosher or sea salt and pepper to taste

The finished product - Baked Penne
will post recipe soon!

Heat oil in a pot (we used our stir fry pan because the male half's pots are not non-stick) over medium heat.  Add the onions and mushrooms and saute until tender.  Add the garlic and cook for 60 seconds, stirring frequently.  Add the remaining ingredients.  Simmer for at least 2 hours, stirring every once in a while.

Cool and keep for future use or use immediately on pasta or shirataki noodles like the Nasoya brand pasta or with Dukan meatballs, etc.

Enjoy...we sure did!

A New Direction

As mentioned in a previous post, we finally had a chance to research the Paleo diet a bit after reading about it on Flamidwyfe's blog.  The diet really does make sense.  Like Dukan, we don't really see it as a diet, but really changing the way we eat -- for the rest of our lives.

Last week the male half of this couple and I discussed Paleo over lunch.  I sent him this link because I found it informative and amusing.  I knew the male half already believed in more natural, less processed products (at one time we looked into grass fed beef and free range chicken -- but they are expensive here in Hawaii).  I was surprised he was ok with the idea of slowly phasing out most grains from our diet...we're hoping to eventually phase it out completely with a few cheats here and there.  Well, I should say, he's ok with phasing out rice and potatoes but hasn't committed to phasing out beer and pasta just yet.

I won't bore you with all the details of our conversation -- the bottom line is, we'll cook what we have the grains in our kitchen including the 1/2 c. of soy sauce we have left, from today forward (or maybe I should say after the holidays) we will try to purchase grocery items that fall under both Dukan and Paleo.

We are still hashing out the details of how committed we will be to Paleo -- but we are looking to better eating all the way around.  In our house, we're calling it the "Caveman Diet" and had quite a bit of fun at a holiday party this weekend reminding each other that "you can't have that, cavemen didn't eat that".

We do have a couple recipes to post from this past weekend (mostly Dukan and hardly Paleo)...so stay tuned!  Once the holidays are over, we are planning to try some Paleo recipes that can be consumed during Dukan's Consolidation Phase.

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

These are not Dukan friendly...but they were interesting.  They were a bit too sweet for us and had we made them smaller, it might have been easier to finish a cookie.  We actually found many variations of this cookie...so we combined a few recipes.

There are some recipes with and some without chocolate chips...we had some chocolate chips leftover from our holiday baking and didn't want to keep them in our pantry so we added them to the recipe.  We haven't tried this with splenda brown sugar and a natural sweetener yet, but maybe when we get to Consolidation we'll try this recipe with less sweetener and no chocolate chips and have it as dessert for our Celebration meal.

Sorry for the lack of photos...we hadn't planned on posting this recipe!

RECIPE:
Makes 15 large cookies or 30 small cookies
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes
Bake Time: 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit

1 c. creamy peanut butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. organic cane sugar
1 egg
1/2 t. vanilla extract
1 c. chocolate chips (try 3/4 c., 1 c. was too much)

Mix peanut butter until smooth.  Add the rest of your ingredients except the chocolate chips and mix well.  Add a little over 3/4s chocolate chips and fold in to your dough.  If necessary, put your dough into the fridge for 10 - 15 minutes for easier handling.  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, line cookie sheets with parchment paper (if you wish).

We made our dough into balls and placed them on the cookie sheet.  Gently push the remaining chocolate chips on the top of each cookie.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Cool completely and enjoy!

Dukan Spice Rubbed Salmon

Spice Rubbed Salmon

We loved this recipe!

We don't eat spiced rubbed anything too often, but saw this recipe pop up on Skinnytaste.com's blog and decided to stash it away.  It was easy to prepare, tasty and something different for us.  We skipped the Black Beans and Corn part of the recipe.

We ended up using 6 smaller pieces of salmon since we were using the tail end of our Costco slab of salmon.  If you're using pieces not similar in thickness, remember to throw the thicker pieces on the grill before the skinnier pieces!

I had this by itself on our PP day.  The male half had his with red rice.

RECIPE:
Serves: 2-4
Prep Time: 10 minutes or so

Cook Time: 8-10 minutes (it really depends on how thick your salmon is, ours were fairly thin so they cooked up fast)

Spice Rub:
1 t. smoked paprika
1 1/2 t. Splenda brown sugar (we'll probably use 1 t. next time)
1/2 t. chipotle chili powder
1/2 t. ground cumin
1/2 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. black pepper
1/2 t. unsweetened cocoa powder

1 lime, juice of
4-6 pieces of salmon (depending on the size again)
lime wedges for serving

Combine all spice rub ingredients in a bowl.  Squeeze lime over both sides of your salmon, then rub your spice rub on both sides of the salmon and let it rest for 5 minutes.  Just before the 5 minutes are up, heat a grill pan over high heat, spray with nonstick spray and place salmon on grill pan.  Cook for 3-5 minutes undisturbed until the salmon is half way cooked, then flip your salmon pieces over and cook for another 3-5 minutes or until your salmon is cooked.  Do not overcook.

Enjoy...we sure did!  And we'll probably use this rub for steaks or chicken in the future.

Back On Track

We are finally back on track!  We've gotten back into the exercise and healthy eating groove...sort of.  The exercise thing is great -- we're back to getting our aerobic exercise at least 5 days per week (more when we have the time).  We try to get in 45 minutes of aerobic exercise but on those busy days we make sure we get in at least 30 minutes.  The 30 minutes of walking doesn't seem to help our weight loss which is why we go with 30-45 minutes of aerobic-- probably because we aren't as strict as we should be with our eating.

That's what the "sort of" comment is all about.  There are times, like last night where we just don't have the time and energy to make dinner so we picked up some Pho (pronounced "fuh") from the Vietnamese restaurant down the street.  The male half of the this couple had his broth with the noodles, chicken and veggies -- I had just the broth and veggies.  Pretty close to Dukan but Pho is usually made with bone marrow.  That's what dinner's in our household on busy nights.

This weekend we are planning to cook some different Dukan meals though.  One will be a pasta using Nasoya Zero Pasta which is on sale right now at Safeway and the other will probably be another grilled salmon dish.

Flamidwyfe's mentioned the Paleo diet and we finally had some time to read up on it.  Consolidation has been a success for her following both the Dukan and Paleo diets.  This lead to some googling of our own and wow, a lot of the Paleo recipes out there are pretty close to Dukan recipes.  We're hoping to Dukan and Paleo some of our future recipes!  

We're familiar with Flamidwyfe's story as we've been following her blog for a while now, but reading it again is always an inspiration.

Dukan Pork Chops (aka No Recipes' Easy Pork Chops)

No Recipe's Pork Chops

We loved this recipe and we're going to invest in a meat thermometer.

As mentioned in an earlier post, we love Marc's blog "No Recipes".  Last month Marc posted a "Best Pork Chops" recipe and we just had to try it.  We don't eat a lot of pork but once in a while to have something different and if it's on sale, we'll pick up some pork chops.  As children, we both were raised eating pork chops pan fried with all the fat left on and a mushroom "gravy" made from the pork chop drippings and cream of mushroom soup.  One of these days we'll make pork chops this way but using fat free cream of mushroom soup.

Gravy seems to be the only thing that saves our pork chops.  We are guilty of always overcooking it trying to be sure we don't get sick eating undercooked pork.  We tried Marc's recipe and although we slightly overcooked it, the brined pork chop was yummy!  We're definitely trying this recipe again -- that's why we're asking Santa for a meat thermometer!

We rarely use our Wii for games (mostly use it for exercise) but we decided to challenge each other to bowling -- which lead to a baseball challenge, then a tennis challenge and if we owned two Wii Nunchucks, we would have boxed each other too ha ha.  This lead to dinner being prepared late which meant we made mistakes while rushing to get dinner cooked.  Eeek!  Our pork chops did not look as beautiful as Marc's with all of our rushing, but the recipe below is what he uses.

Our pork chops came out a little on the sweet side.  We'll adjust the recipe the next time around.  It may have been the full amount of Splenda Brown Sugar we used or the honey in the wine sauce.  We also used more wine than we are allowed, but if you look at it this way -- there were 4 pork chops, 1 cup of white wine would break down to 1/4 c. white wine per pork chops...but I'm sure it doesn't work that way.  In any case...we had this on Saturday night (Cruise PP) along with some other Dukan meals we prepared and this morning, we lost a pound!   It's up to you if you rather wait until Consolidation or Stabilization or perhaps the later half of your Cruise Phase -- you can always reduce the wine and honey or make this pork chop with fat free cream of mushroom sauce instead of the wine glaze.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4 (depends if you're having a starch, I had two pork chops with broccoli and no starch, the male half of this couple had one pork chop, broccoli and red rice)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes (plus 4 hours or overnight brine time)
Cook Time: depends on how thick your pork chops are, approx. 10 minutes

4 - 1 inch thick pork chops, excess fat removed (ours were thicker, our local store didn't have 1 inch thick chops)

Brine:
2 T. Splenda brown sugar
2 T. salt
4 c. water
1 clove garlic (we have the Costco minced one, so we used that)

1 T. olive oil to fry chops in or nonstick spray (we went for the olive oil)
1 large onion, sliced thinly (oops, we sliced ours too thick)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 c. white wine
2 T. honey
1 T. whole grain mustard

In a gallon size sealable freezer bag, add the brine ingredients.  Seal the bag and swish it around to dissolved the sugar and salt.  Add the pork, press out as much air as you can, then seal the bag.  Let pork chops sit in the brine for at least 4 hours, we chose to brine them overnight as Marc suggested.  (We also placed the bag in a pan just in case it leaked).

Remove the pork chops from the brine and use paper towels to remove as much moisture from the surface of the chops as you can.  Marc explains if there's water on the surface, the chops will not brown.

Add the oil to your pan and heat over medium high heat.  As you can see from our photos, our pan was not large enough for 4 pork chops...try not to overcrowd your food like ours.  Under normal circumstances we would cook two chops, then cook the next two...but since we were late in getting dinner started, we squeezed all 4 into the pan.  Place the chops in the pan while the pan is still cold.  Marc explains since the chops are brined with sugar, they'll burn before the cook through if you place them in a hot pan.

Fry the chops undisturbed until they are golden brown on one side and have gone from pink to beige about halfway up the sides.  Flip the chops over and fry the other side until well browned and an instant read thermometer reads 141 degrees Fahrenheit.  Transfer them to a place and let them rest.  Please see Marc's post about cooking pork - eventually you'll want to get your pork chops to an internal temp of 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

Drain most of the excess oil out of the pan and add the onions and garlic.  Saute until the onions are soft (we used red onions which we didn't care for in this recipe).  Add the wine, honey and mustard and turn up the heat to boil off the alcohol and thicken the glaze.

When the glaze is nice and thick, add the pork chops back to the pan and flip them over repeatedly to coat them with the glaze.  Once there is no liquid left in the pan, the pork chops are done.  Top with caramelized onions.   Serve as is on Pure Protein days or with a side of veggies on Protein Veggie days or with brown rice during Consolidation.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Chopped Steak

Chopped Steak

We loved this recipe...and it's easy to adjust to your own taste!

For some reason, we craved an old time Hawaii favorite -- Chopped Steak.  Everyone had their version of it...this one is close to our grandma's except we thickened the sauce a little too much.  Next time we probably won't thicken the sauce this much.  Sunday was a PP day for me, so we made our Chopped Steak the "classic" way -- beef and onions.

Grandma sometimes added bean sprouts or celery and carrots.  The sauce is basically a teriyaki sauce.  It's quick, easy and you can change the beef out for chicken or even tofu.  The thickened sauce worked for me because I had it plain....the male half of this couple had his Chopped Steak with a scoop of red rice, so a runnier sauce would have been fine for him.

RECIPE:
Serves: 2-4 (we got three servings out of ours)
Prep Time: 10 minutes, plus 20 minutes to marinate steak
Cook Time: less than 10 minutes

1 lb. beef, thinly sliced (we used a NY Steak and removed the excess fat, not our favorite cut, but it was reasonably priced)
1 yellow onion, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 t. cornstarch mixed with 1 t. water (optional or you can use less if you want a runnier sauce)

Marinade:
1/4 c. low sodium soy sauce (we used almost a 1/4 c. and filled the rest of the cup with water -- high blood pressure)
2 to 3 t. natural sweetener (we used 2 t., start with 1 t. and taste as you add your sweetener to find a taste you like)
1 t. vinegar
1 inch piece of ginger, grated
1 clove garlic, minced or grated

Combine marinade ingredients.  Add beef and marinate for 20 minutes.

Heat pan over high heat, spray lightly with non stick spray; add onions and cook until soft.  Remove onions and set aside.  Place beef in pan with marinade.  Stir fry until cooked through (ours took 3-4 minutes).  If you want to thicken your sauce, remove beef leaving sauce in pan, if you want to leave your sauce as is, skip this step.  Add your cornstarch/water mixture, stir constantly and lower heat.  Simmer until sauce thickens.

Return beef and onions to pan and stir to coat.  Serve as is or over a bed of brown or red rice.

If you're adding vegetables like bean sprouts, we would toss the veggies in after you remove the onions, cook until veggies are tender, remove veggies and continue with cooking your beef, etc.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Update, Voggy Skies and Sunsets

Voggy Skies of Honolulu - it was worse earlier in the week.  Our poor
tourist, we promise, it doesn't usually look like this!

Last week we decided we needed to throw in some Attack Days.  Whenever we restart the Dukan Diet, our formula always ends up being 4 days of Attack, so 4 days it was.  It wasn't as difficult as the very first time we tried the Dukan Diet.  The first time around - major sugar cravings.  We didn't mind cutting out the fat from our diet -- it actually made our bodies less sluggish, but the sugar cravings, eeek.  This time around, someone offered us homemade brownies of Day Two of our Attack Phase and without hesitation we politely declined the treat.  Hooray!

The first couple of days of Attack we really just ate store bought items due to our work schedules -- poke (seasoned fish), sashimi (slices of raw fish), AppleGate Farms sliced turkey (we like the taste, just not the price), etc.  This past weekend we made it a point to cook low fat meals that fit into the Dukan Diet.  We're prepping those photos and recipes for the blog!  After 4 days of Attack, we haven't seen any weight loss in numbers :-(, but a look in the mirror and taking some measurements shows improvement!

Oahu Sunset

Friday's dinner was a flop.  It wasn't horrible, but we didn't care for the taste.  Before we found out about the Dukan Diet we started collecting recipes from blogs -- we found a Thai woman's blog and the recipe sounded great.  One of the main ingredients is cinnamon but it's a little too much for our tastes.  We won't post the recipe, the end product didn't even look appetizing!

Instead we'll share with you a couple photos taken while we were preparing the flopped dinner!  As we cleaned our chicken, we peeked out the window and noticed how beautiful the sky was...a nice way to end our voggy week :-)

Oahu Sunset - HDR

Dukan Teriyaki Sauce - Hawaii Style

Teriyaki Sauce - Hawaii Style

We liked this recipe and had we not made it too sweet, we're sure we would have loved it.

Easy to make, easy to use to marinate meats (and seafood), use as a dipping sauce, use as a stir fry sauce, add some to your scrambled eggs before you cook the eggs to add flavor, add some to the water your brown or red rice cooks in to add some flavor, etc.

Most people in Hawaii were either raised eating Teriyaki something (beef, chicken, pork, salmon,  hamburgers, etc) or have been exposed to it.  We can't remember a local family picnic where teriyaki wasn't cooking up on the hibachi.  Our grandmother (as did a lot of other people) always had a jar of homemade teriyaki sauce in the refrigerator.

We found this recipe online and it sounded great.  We botched it by adding too much natural sweetener.  We did use only 3/4s of what the recipe called for, but it was still a bit too sweet for us.  We recommend you add in a small amount of natural sweetener and keep tasting to find a taste you like.

We've already tried the sauce as a stir fry sauce and hope to post that recipe next week.  We'll eventually make some Teriyaki Chicken and maybe some Teriyaki Turkey Burgers.  We took Larry's recipe and only made about a cup of teriyaki sauce...partly because we didn't want to store over 8 cups of sauce in our refrigerator and partly because we just don't eat teriyaki like we used to.  We also boiled the entire mixture because that's what our grandmother used to do!

We used this during Cruise.  The amount of oil didn't cause any weight gain for us.

RECIPE:
Makes: a little over 1 cup
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes
Cook Time: approximately 10 minutes, then let it cool

1 c. low sodium soy sauce (we usually fill our cup a little over 3/4s full, then fill the rest with water because one of us has high blood pressure...and yes, we do this to low sodium soy sauce :-))
3/4 c. natural sweetener (or less, depending on your taste)
2 t. Shaoxing wine or dry sherry
2 t. olive oil
1/2 in. ginger, peeled, sliced and crushed
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed

Combine soy sauce and wine in a bowl.  Add natural sweetener in little by little until you find a taste you like.  Set aside.  In a pan large enough to hold all your liquids, heat oil and brown ginger.  Add ginger to soy sauce mixture leaving oil in pan.  Fry garlic until fragrant, then add soy sauce mixture to pan.  Bring to a boil over high heat, then lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes.  Cool your sauce and store in refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Dukan Hong Siew Braised Tofu in Wine Sauce

Hong Siew Braised Tofu

 We loved this recipe...even though we overcooked the tofu and it was harder than it should be!  It was tasty!

We found this recipe on houseofannie.com, a locally based couple with a great recipe blog.  We just had to try this recipe.

A few changes were made since I believe we were in the Cruise stage...the amount of Chinese cooking wine you use didn't worry us.  Instead of oil, we used cooking spray, we used a teaspoon of sesame oil instead of a tablespoon and natural sweetener instead of sugar.

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10 minutes or less
Cook Time: Sorry, I can't remember, we made this back in May, but it cooks up fairly quickly

500 grams firm tofu, drained
5 garlic cloves, minced
6 slices ginger
green onions, 2.5 cm pieces

Sauce:
3 T. low sodium soy sauce
2 T. Chinese Rice Wine or dry sherry
1 t. sesame oil (if you're not too worried about your oil intake, use up to 1 T.)
1 T. natural sweetener (add in half, then taste, most natural sweeteners taste sweeter than refined sugar)
1/2 t. salt
1/2 t. pepper
slurry made from 1 tsp. cornstarch and 1/2 c. water

Mix sauce ingredients and set aside.  Cut tofu into 5 cm square x 1 cm slices and drain on paper towels - we eyeballed our sliced.

Heat oil over medium heat.  When the oil is hot, add tofu and fry until golden brown on both sides.  We used our stir fry pan which was a mistake and the reason we cooked our tofu too long.  Use a shallow/flat pan where all your tofu will be heated evenly.  Removed golden brown tofu and drain on paper towels.

Add garlic, ginger and green onions to pan, fry until fragrant.  Pour sauce over the garlic mixture and stir well to combine.  Add tofu back to the pain, we spooned sauce over all the tofu.  Cover the pan, lower the heat and braise for 5 minutes.

Serve immediately.  Garnish with more green onions if you wish.  We had this dish with some poke (seasoned raw fish).

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Cuban Style Burgers

Cuban Style Burgers

We liked this recipe.  It was tasty but if we were to make it again, we'd just make the burger part.  The ham and cheese part was a little too much for me...but it was delicious.  We had this on our Pure Protein Day, so we didn't have the pickle, it really needed the pickle.

Closet Cooking is another of our favorite recipe blogs.   He's very creative and we like his "trying not to eat the same thing over and over" style.  We love Cuban sandwiches so we knew we would enjoy Closet Cooking's Cuban Burger recipe.

We didn't have these on buns so we skipped the mayo and mustard.  The male half of this couple had his burgers with red rice and I had mine plain.  Next time I think we'll use some fat free mayo and mustard just to add flavor to this dish.  We also used a lower fat ham and reduced fat Swiss cheese.  We made ours with ground turkey only because we don't care for the ground pork sold at Safeway, has a funky taste.

RECIPE:
Serves:  Makes 6-8 smaller burgers or 4 large burgers (there's just two of us, we had leftovers)
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: Approximately 10-15 minutes, depending on how many burgers you can cook at once)

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 handful cilantro, chopped
1 t. lime zest
1/2 t. oregano
1/2 t. ground cumin
1 lb. ground turkey (or pork)
1/4 c. oat bran
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste
2 slices of low fat ham per burger
1 slice of reduced fat Swiss cheese per burger
2 -4 slices of dill pickles if it's your PV day
Dukan bread if you prefer eating this as a burger on a bun.
If you're using a bun or even if you're not, mix 1 mashed garlic per tablespoon of fat free/Dukan mayo (use 1 T per burger) as a dressing.  You may also use 1 T. dijon mustard per burger if you wish.

Mix the garlic, cilantro, lime zest, oregano, oat bran, egg and cumin into the ground turkey.   Form 4 larger patties or 6-8 smaller patties.  Spray a grill pan with a little bit of non-stick spray and over medium high heat start grilling your patties.  They should take approximately 3-5 minutes per side.  We wrapped our cheese in our ham, folded them up and grilled them along with the last two burgers just to melt the cheese and heat up the ham.  Serve burgers with ham/cheese on it.  Add dressing from above recipe if you wish.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Nabe (Meat and Veggie Hot Pot)

Nabe - Not Traditional

It's been getting colder here...we actually had a few days in the high 60's (early in the morning and late in the evening) but that's gone away and we now have voggy humid weather again.  When it started to get colder, I started to crave nabes and shabu shabu...all Japanese style hot pots.  They can be very healthy and Dukan friendly if you don't over do it with the sauces.

Decided on a nabe a couple of weeks ago after dining at Ichiriki, a nabe/shabu shabu restaurant here in Honolulu.  Nabe's are basically seasoned broth with veggies and meats to cook in the broth.  You can find already prepared Nabe broth's in asian stores and some asian food sections in grocery stores, but it's easy to make your own broth too.

I'm embarrassed to say I never wrote down my late grandmother's nabe recipes but back when I was a child, nabe's were really simple broths.  I don't recall my grandmother making kimchee nabes, etc.  This recipe seemed close to what I remember my grandmother using (minus the gochujang).  We followed this recipe but it wasn't very hot nor was it very flavorful.  It could have used more spice and probably more soy sauce.

At the time we made this recipe, we couldn't find any shabu shabu cuts of beef or pork so we went with the batayaki which is still thin, but too thick for our tastes.

RECIPE:
Serves 2 (with lots of leftover broth which we used to make a stir fry and added to our scrambled eggs)
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: less than 10

Broth:
1 liter water
1.5 T. dashi powder (fish powder but you can use chicken boullion if you don't like the taste of fish)
1 T. gochujang (Korean chili paste -not Dukan, but you don't use a lot) or some other spice you prefer - add it in little by little until you find a taste you like)
1-3 T. natural sweetener (again, add little by little until you find a taste you like)
3 T. light soy sauce

Veggies and Meat:
1 block firm tofu, cut into cubes (not too small or your tofu will fall apart)
1 bunch bok choy, choy sum, spinach, or Chinese cabbage (other veggies will work too, even regular head cabbage)
1 package enoki mushrooms (or other kinds of mushrooms like button, shiitake, etc)
1 package shirataki noodles (we've never used the tofu shirataki noodles, but you can certainly try it)
1 or 2 packages of shabu shabu cut meat (pork or beef)

Boil water, add the other broth ingredients to the boiling water, mix well.  Let boil about 10 minutes, then simmer.

Cut and clean your veggies.  Try to cut your items into similar sizes or at least sized so they will cook in the same amount of time.  Place them in your nabe pot (we have a modern one...my cousin inherited our grandmother's clay pot) - see our photos.  I usually prefer the two of us sitting down and eating straight out of the pot...what you'll see in Nabe restaurants is your pot of broth, a plate of uncooked food nicely laid out, a chawan or small bowl of rice and a bowl to hold your cooked food.  You'll notice a lot of people picking food out of the pot laying it on their rice and then eating it.  It was a busy day for us, so I cooked everything in the pot, then put food and broth into two bowls....I ate while finishing up some work and the male half ate his while working on the photography stuff.  There's no wrong way to do this in our opinion.  Same goes with the veggies, use what you like to eat and what will hold up in boiling water.  NOTE: I rolled up our beef thinking it would be a good idea, but hindsight, it boiled into a little ball which wasn't too appetizing when it came out of the pot.  Next time I will just lay it in the pot or cook it like you would cook meats in shabu shabu by swishing it in the boiling broth.

Once you have everything in your pot, pour enough broth into your pot to almost cover the food in your pot.  We have an electrical pot, so we turned our pot on, let the food boil several minutes until the veggies were soft enough, the tofu was heated through and the meat was cooked.

Again, eat straight from the pot or you can place food and broth into your bowl.

Enjoy...we always do!

Dukan Spaghetti Meat Sauce

Spaghetti Meat Sauce

We both liked this recipe and would use it again, but wish we followed No Recipe's recipe closer.

Just before we started the Dukan Diet, we came across Marc's blog called No Recipe.  What caught our eyes were the unique recipes he's posted.  Everything looks yummy on his site and we've saved quite a few of his recipes but this is one of the few recipes of Marc's we've actually tried.

His posts which are part of a PBS special are easy to follow for people like us...less experienced cooks. Our version of Marc's "Best Spaghetti Recipe" did not come out looking anything like his!  It was still very tasty, probably one of the tastiest spaghetti sauces we've made at home.  It was very easy and really was ready in about 30 minutes.

The changes we made are: left out the carrots (next time we'll splurge and use the 1/2 a carrot), we used turkey bacon and ground turkey instead of pork bacon and ground beef, we used lower sugar ketchup.  Oh and we also simmered the sauce too long.  It looked very similar to Marc's sauce when it was first ready but I left it on the stove simmering while the male half of this couple finished washing his car.

The male half of this couple had his sauce over whole wheat spaghetti noodles and I had mind over the Nasoya Shirataki Fettucini noodles.

RECIPE:

Prep Time: 10 minutes (we're not as fast as Marc!)
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Serves: 4

Pasta - depends on what you're making.  For me, one package of the Nasoya Shirataki Fettucini noodles made me full.

8 slices of turkey bacon, chopped into small pieces (you can use less, we had 8 in the freezer and decided to use the whole thing)
9 ounces of ground turkey
1 small onion, diced into 1/8 inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/2 c. dry white wine
400 grams of crushed tomatoes (use diced tomatoes, we used crushed because the male half of this couple won't eat tomatoes unless they are sauce-y)
2 T. low sugar ketchup
1/2 t. kosher salt
1/4 t. pepper
1 t. oregano

According to Marc, you can prepare your noodles the same time you're making this sauce, but if you're using Shirataki noodles like we did, boil your noodles just before your sauce is ready.

Over medium high heat, add bacon to your pan and fry until a good amount of oil has been released from the bacon.  Then add the ground turkey breaking up the meat, fry until cooked.  Remove meat mixture from pan and set aside leaving oil in the pan.  If you have more than one tablespoon of oil left in the pan, remove some oil.  If you don't have one tablespoon of oil, add olive oil. Turn the heat down to medium low.  Add onions and garlic (if you're using carrots, add those in now too).  Saute onions and garlic around 10-15 minutes or until onions are soft.  As Marc mentioned in his post, do not skimp on time here.  Turn the heat up to high and add meat mixture.  Then add wine, stir constantly until the there's almost no liquid left.

Turn the pan down to medium low and add the tomatoes, ketchup, salt and pepper.  Put the oregano in the palm of your hand and rub your hands together in a circular motion to crush the oregano into a powder.  Add oregano to the pan.  Mix well.  Simmer for another 10 minutes and serve on your choice of noodles.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Product Review: Nasoya Fettucini Noodles

It's been a while since we've used tofu shirataki noodles.  The male half of this couple didn't mind eating it when we first started the diet, but I recently asked him about it and he said he prefers not to eat them.

As mentioned in a previous post, being Asian, we grew up eating Shirataki noodles...in Japanese dishes, not in pasta.  Never even considered using it in a pasta dish nor did we realize it's low cal, etc.  Since it was colder here in the islands, decided to try No Recipe's Spaghetti Meat Sauce Recipe (with a few changes) this weekend.    Recipe will be posted after I doctor up the photos.

Over the past month we've noticed a second brand of shirataki noodles at our local market...Nasoya's Fettucini noodles.  Decided to give it a try with the spaghetti sauce (of course I make whole wheat spaghetti noodles for the male half).

Here's how we prepared it...

Rinsed the noodles, then boiled in salted water for a few minutes.

We definitely like the taste better.  It's still got sort of a crunch to it, just like regular shirataki noodles do, but we are almost positive it doesn't have any other taste to it which is nice.  (I made the male half of this couple try one noodles to give me his rating).

We're definitely buying this brand instead!

Miracle 01409 Miracle Shirataki- 6x7 Oz (Google Affiliate Ad)

Catching Up

Oh gosh, I drafted this last week and thought I posted it!

Thanksgiving is over and it feels like we're rolling really fast towards Christmas!   We spent the weekend baking tons of holiday goodies for the three holiday get togethers we have this coming week so for dinners we ate store bought poke (seasoned raw fish), sashimi (slices of raw fish), leftover turkey and lots of broccoli.

This weekend will be another busy one with our holiday get togethers, so not much cooking going on this weekend.  It's been hard with the holiday get togethers to say no to carbs and sweets, but so far we've been able to keep the carb and sugar intake to a minimum.  Most days we try not to have any.  I guess the Dukan Diet is sort of on hold for now.  We wanted to go back into Cruise after our scouting trip, but we're still in Consolidation.  The nice thing is with the 45 minute aerobic workout (every other day), we've been able to lose the weight we gained during the scouting trip.

Today we decided to catch up on Flamidwyfe's blog.  Her blog has always been a source of inspiration and when we feel we need a kick in the butt to buckle down on the Dukan Diet, we read through some of her posts.  It's definitely getting us excited again.  We've already decided at this Sunday's Brunch it'll be no desserts or carbs...just attacking the sashimi area, the less fatty meats and veggies.

We do have a couple of recipes to post like our Nabe Recipe which is a Japanese Hot Pot recipe.  Very easy to make where ever you live and with the wintery weather here, the soup base will keep you nice and warm.   Nabe is really just a broth (you can use different kinds, homemade) with veggies and meats.  You can also add Shirataki Tofu noodles to the broth.

Hope to post that recipe soon!

Hope everyone is having a great holiday season.