Dukan Cedar Wrapped Salmon

Cedar Wrapped Salmon - Can't remember why we didn't
take a photo of the salmon on a plate

Happy New Year again!  Hope everyone had a safe New Year's Eve and a restful New Year's Day.  Our local paper (as with probably most newspapers around the world) had an entire issue on New Year's Resolutions -- how to set them and keep to your goals.  Of course, one of the top resolutions listed is to lose weight (and live a healthier life).

If this is your first time to our blog and you've been led here after a Google search on the Dukan or Paleo diets, welcome!  We hope our recipes help in your health goals for the rest of your life :-)  We have to admit, New Year's Eve (a big eating day here in Hawaii and probably many other places around the world) we cheated.  Of course, gained some weight due to the cheating but yesterday we managed to get back on the healthy eating horse and not cheat one bit.  We're pretty surprised.  The first time we started the Dukan diet, after a cheat meal, it was SO HARD to eat healthy again.  After cheating on New Year's Eve, we discussed the weight gain we would both experience, came to terms with it and vowed to eat a strict PP diet the next day.   If we can do it, so can you!  Good luck!

On with the recipe...we have some recipes from the end of the year to post, a couple of them would be classified as Celebration Meals, but we'll start out with a recipe that is not only Dukan Cruise but Paleo - ish too.

We loved this recipe!

We're not really into smokey flavors, but once in a while we enjoy something like this.  This reminded us of a dish we had in Cowichan on the island of Vancouver, BC.  We really didn't put much thought into this dish...it was a last minute decision.  The day before we were at the poke (seasoned raw fish) counter buying poke for our lunch when we spotted these Fire and Flavor Cedar Wraps.  We did a double take, thought it would be interesting to try but wanted to research if something like this could be used during Dukan.  Well, we didn't find anything specific to Cedar Wraps, so the next day (Christmas Eve), after work we dashed into the grocery store and bought one pack.

They are easy, easy to use.  You soak them for about 10 minutes in water, then wrap whatever you want to grill or bake in the wrap, tie with the string provided and you're ready to cook.  For our first try, we decided to bake salmon in the oven.  It was a PP day, so no veggies were added.  Our salmon for the most part came out moist (except for the edges -- we cut our salmon too large).  After we wrapped the salmon, we realized we forgot to add dill, but oh wells, next time.  We have four more wraps from this package -- not sure if we'll do an Asian Salmon or a chicken in the last four wraps.

As the male half of this couple put it, if you're not into smokey flavors, it's nothing to get excited about but it did provide something different for us to eat.   This was a very mild flavored dish...we didn't want to overpower it with seasonings -- we wanted to taste the cedar the first time around.

We are classifying this recipe as a Dukan and Paleo - ish recipe.

NOTE: We've never used Cedar Planks, so we can't comment on whether the convenience of the wraps are worth not using Cedar Planks.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4 (two if you're in Cruise or on the Paleo Diet, four if you're in Consolidation and not on the Paleo diet)
Prep Time: 10 minutes to soak the wraps and about 10 minutes to prep and wrap your food
Bake Time: 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on how thick your salmon pieces are

4 pieces of salmon (wild caught if you're on Paleo), in total ours weighed about 1 lb
salt and pepper to taste
olive oil
lemon slices and fresh lemon juice (4 slices, one for each piece of salmon, plus lemon juice to squeeze on your salmon)

If you have fresh dill (or even dried dill) you may want to sprinkle some on.  We wanted to try it with dill, but forgot to add it on the salmon.

Soak your wraps in water for 10 or more minutes.  Be sure to keep them submerged.  In the meantime, rinse and pat dry your salmon.  Dab a little olive oil on both sides of your salmon.  Salt and pepper your salmon.  Let sit for 5 minutes.  Squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over your fish -- we seasoned both sides of the salmon.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Wrap each salmon in a cedar wrap and tie (directions are provided).   Place in pan (we used a foiled lined pan for easy clean up) and bake for 15-20 minutes or until salmon is cooked through.

If you're adding veggies to your wrap, place them on top of your fish or chicken or whatever you decide to wrap.

Enjoy...we sure did!