Dukan Crockpot Salsa Verde Chicken (it's Paleo-ish too!)

Crockpot Salsa Verde Chicken

We both loved this recipe...and we loved how easy it was.

Finally found some time to work on recipes!

Came across this idea after seeing several recipes like this one on the internet.  We were happy to find Herdez Salsa Verde in Safeway down the street from us.  It has no preservatives or fat which made it allowable for both our Dukan and Paleo sides.  We didn't use free range chicken for this dish though.

The photo doesn't look the greatest, there really wasn't a whole lot of color going on, but it was easy and delicious!

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4 (depending on what you eat or do not eat with it)
Prep time: less than 10 minutes
Cook time: approx. 6 hours on low

1 1/2 lbs. skinless chicken tenders
1 - 16 oz. jar of Herdez Salsa Verde
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/8 t. oregano
1/8 t. cumin
1 T. fresh lime juice (optional) - we actually used more and realized we should have used less!

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  We lined our crock pot with a Reynold's Crockpot Liner for easy clean up.     Place chicken in pot.  Mix herbs together - season chicken with herbs.  Pour lime juice over chicken evenly.  Cover and cook for 6 hours on low.  At the 5 1/2 hour mark, open the lid, quickly shred the chicken and cover.

The male half had his with brown rice and veggies and I had mine with just veggies.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Southwest Turkey Burgers (it's Paleo too!)

Southwest Turkey Burger

We loved this recipe!

This was very simple to make and very tasty!  We used Rachael Ray's recipe and made some changes so the meal would fit both Dukan and Paleo.   We did use bacon which we wouldn't use in Cruise (too much fat).  We used lettuce in place of a bun.

Not sure if it's just my imagination, but the leftovers tasted even better.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4
Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: approx 15-16 minutes, we cooked our burgers in two batches

1 1/4 lb. ground turkey
2 slices bacon, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, minced finely
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 t. dried thyme leaves
2 T. freeze dried or fresh cilantro leaves
1/2 small bell pepper, seeded and chopped finely (any color)
2 small serrano peppers, seeded and chopped finely
2 t. ground cumin
2 t. adobo seasoning (Paleo folks, making your own is best)
4 pieces of romaine lettuce to fit burgers like buns

Heat a grill pan over medium heat.  Mix all ingredients except lettuce together.  Form 4 large patties and
grill.  For the Dukan folks, spray your pan lightly with non-stick spray and for the Paleo folks, extra virgin olive oil or your choice of fat.

Grill patties approx 4 minutes on each side or until juices run clear.  It'll depend on how thick you make your patties.

Serve with lettuce pieces.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Grilled Ono with Aji Criolla Sauce (it's Paleo too!)

Grilled Ono with Aji Criollo Sauce

We loved this dinner!

It was very, very simple.  We made the Aji Criollo sauce from this post to go with this simply grilled Ono or Wahoo recipe.  We were feeling the need for a healthy, lean and easy to prepare meal, so we pulled out the Ono we had in our freezer from our fish guy.  It was perfect and the Aji Criollo gave it a nice kick without making the dish heavy.  The male half is not a fan of sauces, but he actually like this since it was spicy and light.

You don't have to use Ono for this recipe...Mahi Mahi or most other fishes would go nicely with the Aji Criollo.

RECIPE:
Serves: 2
Prep Time: less than 5 minutes (not including the making of the Aji Criollo)
Cook Time: around 10-12 minutes, depending on how thick your fish is

1 1/2 lbs. of Ono or pretty much any other fish that tastes great grilled
adobo seasoning (for the Paleo folks, we will be making our own adobo seasoning soon and will post the recipe)
Aji Criollo sauce

Heat your grill pan over medium heat.  Cut fish into pieces (not too thick and not too thin).  Rinse and pat dry your fish.  Lightly season with adobo seasoning ....you can use more...we have high blood pressure, so we usually go easy on the adobo seasoning.  

Place fish on grill pan (lightly sprayed for the Dukan folks and lightly wiped with extra virgin olive oil for the Paleo folks).  Cook until half way done, flip the fish over and finish cooking.  Be sure to cook your fish through if it's not fresh but don't overcook or it will dry out.

Top fish with some Aji Criollo sauce.   We had ours with some grilled asparagus.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Crock Pot Herb Chicken (It's Paleo too!)

Crock Pot Herb Chicken

We loved this recipe!

We've mentioned in the past we are trying to ease our way into the Paleo Diet (but I'm still more Dukan since I need to lose weight again!).  So we've been trying to find recipes that are both Dukan and Paleo friendly.  Last week we decided to read up on Whole 30.  It's a similar concept to Dukan's Attack Phase where you cut out sweeteners of all kinds, etc.   There are a lot of differences too but the bottom line is, if you weren't already on a sweetener free diet, you may have sweetener cravings during this stage.  Oh and Whole 30 lasts for 30 days.  Wow.  I'm not sure I could do a whole 30 days and the male half of this couple has no desire in following all the rules of Whole 30 for even a week.

We both agree on natural foods (not processed), little to no chemicals, etc.  He isn't quite ready to give up white and red potatoes although he's been a good sport about trying to eat more sweet potatoes and we no longer cook rice at home.  (FYI - for a lot of Hawaii people, rice is a daily thing for us!)  He has also been a good sport about eating pretty much whatever I cook, but once in a while he wants Rosemary Red Potatoes and if we have friends over, he eats rice with them.

That said, I proposed we try Whole 30, sent the male half this great post and from there the negotiations began haha!  He even got his mother's opinion which is "her parents lived into their 90's and they ate grains and potatoes all the time and were pretty much disease free"...I pointed out they lived and grew up in a different time with much less toxins, they didn't eat a lot of processed foods like we were brought up on but I could see I wasn't going to win the battle.  After some negotiations, we settled on me proposing Whole 30 recipes I think he's gonna like, he'll have a say on whether we'll try it or not.

So far, the three meals I proposed (I snuck one in, only had two approved ha ha!) he really enjoyed

with the exception of the Paleo Meatloaf we will post soon.  He didn't hate it, he just didn't care for the texture.

Back to this recipe....it was easy to make, tasty and moist.  If you're in Cruise, nix the carrots if you prefer.  We forgot to buy Sage at the Farmer's Market but the chicken was still yummy!

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 6-7 hours on low (used our 4 qt crock pot)

6-8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (free range if you can)
1 medium carrot, peeled and chopped (omit if you're in Dukan Cruise)
1 medium red onion, peeled and chopped (yellow is ok, we had red on hand already)
3/4 c. organic chicken broth
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 T. fresh rosemary, minced
1 t. dried thyme (1 T. if you use fresh)
optional - 1 T. fresh sage, minced
pure sea salt and pepper to taste

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Remove extra fat, we left some on so the chicken wouldn't dry out.  Spritz chicken lightly with olive oil.  Rub chicken with spices and garlic.  Place carrots and onion in the crock pot.  Place chicken on top of vegetables.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Pour chicken broth over everything.  Cover and cook on low for 6-7 hours or until chicken is cooked.  We cooked ours for 6 hours.

We had our chicken with som grilled lemon pepper asparagus.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Crockpot Salsa Chicken (it's a Paleo recipe too!)

Crockpot Salsa Chicken

We loved this recipe...even though we overloaded it with salsa.

A couple years ago we invested in our very first crock pot (slow cooker).  Then we found a fabulous crock pot recipe blog and tried a few of the recipes.  We loved this one - simple and tasty.   After I saw the recipe for 'Fire Roasted Salsa' we just made, I wanted to make the crock pot salsa chicken again...but had to nix the corn, store bought salsa and black beans.

Not feeling very creative, we decided to just use salsa and chicken but overcompensated on the salsa.  We should've stuck to the one cup of salsa.  We had way too much leftover salsa in the pot.  It was very tasty though.

If you come up with additions to this recipe, please share them in our comments section.  We'd love to try variations!

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4 people
Prep Time: approx 15 minutes (not including making the salsa)
Cook Time: 6-7 hours on low

6-7 boneless, skinless chicken thighs (we used antibiotic free chicken - 'Open Nature')
2 c. fire roasted salsa (adjust to 1 c.)
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped and reserve for garnish

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Remove excess fat.  We left some fat on so the chicken wouldn't dry out.  Cover evenly with salsa.  Cover pot and cook on low for 6-7 hours.  We cooked ours for 6 hours and it was perfect.  Garnish with cilantro before serving.

The male half had his with avocado, I had mine plain.  We also had asparagus with this.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Ono Fish Tacos (It's Paleo too!)

Dukan Ono Fish Tacos

We loved this recipe!

Decided to use up our leftover Fire Roasted Salsa for the tacos and another avocado salsa recipe to garnish our tacos.  The male half of this couple is not a big fan of sauces so I figured the salsa and avocados were enough.  These were very tasty.  We followed most of this recipe which we found while searching for Whole 30 recipes.  We used Ono instead of Salmon because we already had it on

hand.

We'll try this recipe again but with a softer fish (but not too soft).  For me, the Ono was a bit too stiff...the male half of this couple didn't mind.  The fish was frozen, but when we purchased it it was fresh from the fish auction so after defrosting it still tasted great!    Oh and we didn't have coriander (darn beetles got to them) but the original recipe does call for 1 t. ground coriander).

A couple notes relating to Dukan - while in Cruise the first time around, we didn't eat avocado but the second time around, we've had avocado on a couple of occasions but not often and not a lot per serving.   So for those in Cruise still needing to lose weight, have this without the avocado salsa!

Speaking of the avocado salsa, it was good, but not one of our favorites.  We actually prefer our Avocado Tartare recipe.

We ate three tacos each!  It was a nice refreshing dish on a very voggy and humid day.

RECIPE:
Serves 2 very hungry people
Prep Time: 30-40 minutes (not including the time to make the salsa)
Cook Time: about 15 minutes or so

1 1/2 lbs. fish (your choice, depends on what you like in your fish tacos or what you can get your hands on, we used Ono)
olive oil spray - we spritzed our fish with olive oil, I think we used less than 1 t)
nonstick spray if you're on Dukan, olive oil for the pan if you're on Paleo
small head of romaine lettuce or lettuce of your choice
Fire Roasted Salsa


Fish seasoning
1 t. pure sea salt
1 t. ground cumin
1 t. paprika
1 t. onion powder
1 t. black pepper

Avocado Salsa ingredients
1 avocado, peeled, seeded and diced
1/2 sm. red onion, diced small
2 jalapenos, seeded and diced (I wish we minced ours)
Juice from 2 limes
1 T. extra virgin olive oil (we used less than this)
2 T. cilantro, finely chopped
Pure sea salt to taste (we added very little due to high blood pressure)

Rinse and pat dry fish.  Cut into 1 1/2" sticks that are approximately 3 -4 inches long or whatever shape
you can make from your piece of fish.    Mix fish seasoning together in small bowl, spritz fish lightly with olive oil, place fish in a large zip lock bag, rub seasoning all over fish and let marinate in refrigerator at least 30 minutes.

Remove fish from refrigerator.  Start on avocado salsa.  Add all ingredients to a bowl, mix gently and chill until the tacos are ready to assemble.  Rinse, clean and drain lettuce.  We made 3 tacos for each of us.

Heat your grill pan on medium high heat.  Coat pan according to which diet you are on.  Cook fish.  When fish looks about half cooked, flis fish over and cook until done.  Ours took about 3 minutes on each side.  While the fish is cooking, dry your lettuce.

When fish is done, assemble tacos.  We placed a piece of fish in the lettuce, drained as much liquid as we could from the salsa, added a layer of the drained salsa to the fish and topped with some avocado salsa.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Paleo Crockpot Pork Chops, Bacon and Apples

Crockpot Pork Chops , Bacon and Apples

We enjoyed this recipe...can't say we loved it, but it was tasty and different for us.

We removed a lot of the fat from our pork chops -- of course, our pork chops turned out a little dry.  Well, I should say some came out dry and some came out almost dry.  No complaints from the male half of this couple though...he was happy to have something different.  We also cooked it quickly - 4 hours on high, but wish we had more time to slow cook it.   We found many recipes online for Crockpot Pork Chops, Bacon and Apples -- then came up with our own version.

Will definitely try other pork chop/bacon/apple recipes in the future.

We ate this while in Dukan Consolidation but if you feel it's too much fat for you, you can wait until your weight has stabilized.  This dish didn't effect our weight at all.  We had these pork chops with steamed broccoli.

RECIPE:
Serves 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 4 hours on high or 8 hours on low

4-5 small lean pork chops, some fat removed
4 strips bacon, cut into large chunks
2 apples, cut into 1" pieces (or around there)
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 small yellow onion, sliced
salt and pepper to season the pork chops
1/2 t. chili flakes

Place apples, garlic, onion, bacon and chili flakes into a lined crock pot.  Season pork chops with salt and pepper, place them in the pot.  Cover and cook for 4 hours on high or preferably 6-8 hours on low.

Enjoy!

Dukan Crockpot Enchilada Stew (it's Paleo too!)

Enchilada Stew

We loved this recipe!

This recipe came from a Paleo site, Paleomg.com.  She blogger is pretty funny and we've tried a couple of her recipes...very good!  We actually tried this recipe back while I was getting over an illness so we never worked on a post for it.  It was very tasty, but a little too spicy for us so we added an additional can of tomato sauce.

This made a LOT of food for the two of us.  Leftovers went into a frittata and the rest in the freezer. The male half of this couple enjoyed his stew with a couple slices of avocado.  We left out the coconut oil since we didn't have any, but the stew still came out great!

RECIPE:
Serves a lot (depends on how you eat it...I ate it as is, the male half had his with brown rice.)
Prep time: 10-30 minutes (we removed fat from our chicken)
Cook Time: 6-8 hours on low

Enchilada Stew

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (some fat removed, too much fat removed will result in a very dry chicken dish)
1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 small green bell pepper, chopped
2 jalapenos, seeds removed, chopped
1 - 4oz can chopped green chiles
1 - 14 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 - 7 oz can tomato sauce
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 T. ground cumin
1 T. chili powder (use less if you prefer less heat)
2 t. dried oregano
salt and pepper, to taste
bunch of cilantro, for garnish, chopped
avocado, sliced (if you're not in Cruise)

Rinse and pat dry chicken.  Place chicken in a lined crock pot.  Add the rest of the ingredients on top the chicken in any order.  Cover and cook on low for approximately 6 hours.  Shred chicken before serving.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Crockpot Cilantro Lime Chicken (it's a Paleo recipe too!)

Crockpot Cilantro Lime Chicken

We have mixed feelings about this one...mostly because we didn't follow the recipe all the way and we're guessing that may be partly why it didn't come out to our liking.

This is a very flavorful marinade, but it was too lime-y for us.  It may be because we used 8 boneless chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken...but one of us doesn't like looking at or touching a whole chicken!  I'm hoping someone else will try it with the whole chicken because the recipe we found, the photo on the blog made the chicken look so yummy!   Here's the original recipe.

Here's what we did:

RECIPE:
Serves 4
Prep time: 15 minutes plus overnight marinading
Cook time: 6 hours on low

8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, most of the fat removed

Dry Rub ingredients:
1 t. pure sea salt
1 t. black pepper
1 t. chili powder
1 t. cayenne powder
1 t. ground cumin

1/2 c. lime juice (about 4 limes for us...if we try this again, we've going to try 1/4 c. lime juice)
2 generous handfuls of fresh cilantro, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 T. extra virgin olive oil (optional if you're on Dukan)

Rinse and pat dry your chicken.  Place in a large ziplock bag (we don't recommend using a crock pot


liner - ours leaked.  Apply the dry rub onto the chicken, make sure to put an even coating on the chicken.  In a food processor, combine lime juice, cilantro, garlic and olive oil.  Pour marinade over chicken.  Seal bag pressing out as much air as you can.

Marinade chicken overnight.  The next day, place chicken in crockpot along with any leftover marinade, cook on low for 6-8 hours.  We cooked ours for 6 hours.

Hope this turns out better for everyone else...maybe one day I'll get over my whole chicken fears!

Cauliflower Fried Rice (Dukan and Paleo)

Cauliflower Fried "Rice"

We loved this recipe!

Thank you Nomnompaleo.com for sharing your recipe!  We can't wait to try different variations of this fried "rice".  We may have mentioned before, but we are not big fans of cauliflower, don't really care for the taste.  In the past, we never made cauliflower at home, it's expensive here in Hawaii and it's usually a side dish at a restaurant, steamed with not much seasoning.  We've experimented with Cauliflower Pizzas and now enjoy cauliflower!  (We'll post the Cauliflower Pizza recipe soon).

We did change the recipe a tiny bit to accomodate either what we could find at the Farmer's Market and what we had in our fridge.

We made the Paleo version of this recipe but it's easy to change it to a Dukan recipe...many Paleo recipes are!  For Dukan Dieters, omit the bacon if you're worried about fat and use a lean meat or you can go meatless too.  Also use non-stick spray instead of the bacon fat.  Easy!

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
Prep time: at least 20 minutes (we have a tiny food processor, the male half said we could buy a larger one if I start using ours on a regular basis :-))
Cook time: around 20-30 minutes (sorry I forgot how long it took us)

1 small head of cauliflower, washed and cut into florets
3 slices of uncured bacon, diced small
2 eggs, beaten
1 inch piece of ginger, grated fine
1/2 yellow onion, diced small (you can use a whole one)
4 oz. shiitake mushrooms, sliced
2 green onions, chopped
2 T. fresh cilantro, chopped
2 T. fresh basil, chopped
kosher salt and black pepper to taste
splash of vinegar
splash of Red Boat Fish Sauce (don't leave this out!)

Pulse cauliflower florets until they are the size of rice (we over pulsed ours).  Cook bacon in a pan over medium heat.  While the bacon is cooking, chop the rest of your ingredients.  Remove cooked bacon and some of the bacon fat (leave enough to cook the egg).  Beat eggs, add salt and pepper, then fry a thin omelet in the pan.  My mother used to chop the omelet up into small pieces when the egg was almost done cooking, so we did the same.  Remove egg from pan.

Turn the heat up to medium-high (add bacon grease or spray pan with non-stick spray) and add chopped onions with a pinch of salt and a dash of pepper.  When the onions are softened, add the mushrooms and stir fry until mushrooms are almost cooked through.  Add ginger, stir fry for 30 seconds.  Add cauliflower and some salt and pepper, stir.  Put a lid on your pan and lower your heat to low and let cook for about 5 minutes.  When the cauliflower is tender, add the egg and herbs.  Mix, add salt and pepper if needed.  Top off your fried "rice" with a splash of fish sauce and serve.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Japanese Style Cucumber Sesame Salad (it's Paleo too!)

Cucumber Sesame Salad

Help!  We've fallen and we can't get up!  Actually, we fell off the wagon, gained a couple pounds, but are back on track.  The short story - work has been incredibly busy -- working VERY long hours = not much time or energy to meal plan or cook.  We ended up eating what we could while trying to make better choices.  Didn't work.  Last week we decided we gotta get back on track.  Went back to a Cruise-like Consolidation while trying to apply Paleo rules and lost a couple pounds.  Also got back on track with our cardio workouts 5 times per week.

What does a Cruise-like Consolidation Phase with Paleo rules equal to?  Low fat, almost no dairy, no grains, lots of fresh veggies, and trying to choose food items that are close to being natural.  Oh and we're trying to do this while lowering our food budget.  I'm still trying to get a hold on our new way of eating and our new budget.

Cucumbers were on sale the other week (on sale here they are about $1.99 per pound) and we decided to throw together a Japanese style cucumber salad I grew up on.  It is a VERY EASY recipe, tasty and refreshing.   The male half of this couple loves cucumbers and he loved this salad.

This is a Consolidation Phase recipe, although eaten in moderation it worked just fine during Cruise for us.  It's up to you.

RECIPE:

Serves - depends on the size of your cucumber (ours served us 2 times, plus a snack size amount for the male half of this couple)

Prep Time: Approx 20 minutes (part of this time you are letting your cucumbers sit in the fridge)

1 cucumber (approx 3/4 lb.), 1/4" slices (or halves, or cubed, whichever you way you like it)

1 T. ground sesame

1/2 T. sesame oil

1 t. kosher salt (or pure sea salt)

1 T. Tamari (wheat free low sodium soy sauce - I would start with 1/2 T. if you're watching your sodium intake)

Massage salt into cucumbers.  Place bowl of cucumbers into the refrigerator for approximately 10 minutes.  Remove the bowl from the fridge and drain liquid.  Add ground sesame, sesame oil and tamari, mix well and place bowl back in the fridge for a few minutes or until you are ready to eat.  

NOTE: We added cubed konnyaku to our salad because we had half a cube left over, it tastes great either way.   We also made a double order of this which was way too much for us.  We like variety when it comes to our weekly food intake.  We made one order this past weekend and it was just perfect as a side dish for the two of us, plus a snack size portion for the male half the next day.

The following day the cucumbers didn't look as crisp, but they still had a nice crunch to them.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Greek Chicken Stew (it's a Paleo - ish recipe too!)

Greek Chicken Stew

We loved this recipe!

His only having a fruit smoothie and protein bar all day could have been the reason the male half of this couple loved this recipe.  It was pretty good.  This stew was perfect for us.  Easy to make, tasty, light but it warmed us up during that cold, windy weekend.

We found this recipe while googling "healthy stew recipes" -- as soon as we saw how easy it was and it had cauliflower, we knew we had to try it.  The male half loves cauliflower.   Our finished dish did not look nearly as good as the photo on the NY Times site though.  We left out the olives (male half doesn't like them and the author mentioned the salt content and we need to be a little more careful with our salt intake) and the feta cheese.

We also pulsed our tomatoes more than the author of the recipe did because the male half of this couple doesn't like chunky tomatoes.  This recipe is both a Dukan recipe (Cruise, Consolidation and Stabilization) and is a Paleo - ish recipe.  Use organic tomatoes and free range chicken to get closer to a Paleo meal.  We found some Paleo people against vinegars and some use in moderation.  This recipe calls for 2 T. which to us is not a whole lot.

RECIPE:
Serves: 2 if you're not having any starch (this actually could have been three servings, but as mentioned above, the male half only had a fruit smoothie and protein bar that day and I didn't want to leave one piece of chicken left on the pot -- I was stuffed and uncomfortable for a while after dinner -- note to self: save the one piece of chicken)
Prep Time: 10 minutes or so
Cook Time: 1.5 - 2 hours

1 T. extra virgin olive oil
1 red onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
6 - 8 boneless and skinless chicken thighs, some of the excess fat removed, rinse and pat dry (we used 6)
2 T. red wine vinegar
1 - 28 oz. can organic chopped tomatoes, with juice, pulsed in a food processor
1/2 t. cinnamon
sea salt and pepper to taste
1/2 t. dried thyme
2 cups cauliflower florets, sliced about 1/2" thick
1/2 T. dried parsley

The original recipe has you frying your chicken in a tablespoon of olive oil but we used our nonstick pan and fried the chicken without spray or using oil on the pan.  Fry chicken over medium high heat, browning each side, in batches if necessary.  Takes approximately 5 minutes on each side.  Remove the chicken and place on a plate.  Pour off any excess fat from the pan leaving the fried bits in the pan.  Add vinegar to pan and scrape up all the bits from the bottom on the pan.

Add the olive oil and turn heat down to medium.  Add the onion and a generous pinch of salt and cook, stir often and scrape the bottom of the pan until it begins to soften, about 5 minutes.  Turn the heat to low, cover and let the onions cook for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time until lightly browned and very soft.  Add the garlic, stir together for about a minute, until the garlic is fragrant.  Add the tomatoes and their juices, cinnamon, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste.  Bring to a simmer and simmer 10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until the mixture is reduced slightly.

Return the chicken to the pot along with any juices accumulated on the plate.  If necessary, add enough water to barely cover the chicken.  We didn't need to add water.  Bring to a simmer, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add the cauliflower and simmer for another 20 minutes or until the cauliflower is tender and the chicken is very tender.  We cooked ours about 20 minutes longer than the recipe recommended, it took a while for our cauliflower to cook.  Stir in the parsley, taste and adjust seasonings.

We ate this as is, no starches or grains.  We save the leftover tomato sauce in the pan for an omelet the next day.

According to the author of the recipe, the stew keeps for 3 to 4 days and freezes well.  We ate all of ours but hope to make more!

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Persian Turkey Burgers (it's a Paleo recipe too!)

Persian Turkey Burgers

We have mixed feelings about this one...

It was a little on the plain side but it's always nice to try something different.  We went back to see if we did something wrong and we probably could have increased the amount of each spice since the recipe calls for 1 pound of meat and the ground turkey at Safeway only comes in 1.25 lbs -- we didn't want to save .25 lbs. of ground turkey, although we could have used it for something.  It could also be because we used ground turkey instead of ground beef.

Anyway, we also didn't try any of the sauce recipes listed on the recipe page and the yogurt sauce would've been a good one to try with these burgers.  So, this wasn't a bad recipe, the burgers were juicy, just not one that knocked our socks off because it was bursting with flavor.  We'd definitely try this recipe again.

The nice thing about this recipe -- it fit both the Dukan and Paleo diets without any changes...well, except we didn't cook ours with ghee.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4 (we ate it as a Cruise/Paleo meal, so with veggies only, no starch)
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10-20 minutes

1 1/4 lb. ground turkey or 1 lb. ground beef
1 small onion, diced finely
1 egg
1 t. kosher or sea salt
1/2 t. black pepper
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. dried oregano

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.  Form patties (we made 8 small patties).  Heat grill pan over medium.  If you're on the Dukan Diet, spray your pan with a little bit of nonstick spray.  If you're on Paleo, use your choice of fat.  We lightly brushed on a small amount of extra virgin olive oil on our pan for the first round of patties and didn't need any additional oil for the second round of patties.

Cook patties until they are half cooked, then flip patties over and cook until done.  We usually cook ours about 3-4 minutes per side or until there are no pink juices coming out of the patties.

We had ours with steamed broccoli.  The leftovers were broken up into small pieces and made into a Persian Burger Scramble for my breakfast.

Dukan and Paleo Pulled Pork

Easy Pulled Pork

We loved this recipe!

Ok, first of all, our first time on Dukan, we stayed away from fatty meats...hardly used our slow cooker.  This time around, instead of just a 30 minute walk per day, we are trying to do 30-45 minutes of aerobic exercise which is why during Cruise, we weren't afraid to have pulled pork.   I usually eat Pork Adobo once a week from a little Filipino shop near my work -- it's made with pork shoulder -- I discard all the fat and eat only the meaty pieces and I've lost almost half the weight I set out to lose.   If you've still got a lot of weight to lose and you're not doing some sort of almost daily aerobic exercise, you may want to wait until Consolidation to try this recipe.

The first week of January it was rainy and windy here...almost every day.  It seemed like the temperature was always 68 degrees when I checked my phone.  So, Thursday, our usual 'meal planning' day, we pulled out a Greek Chicken Stew recipe and this Crock Pot Pulled Pork recipe.  They were perfect for the rainy, windy and chilly weekend.

We found this recipe soon after we decided to start easing into the Caveman way of eating.  Saved it and didn't intend to use it until we lost all our weight and truly eased into the Caveman diet.  We couldn't wait :-)  This recipe is very easy and very tasty -- oh and it's a lot for two people.  We froze half the pulled pork and the other half we ate for two meals with no rice or bread.

Mix your dry rub.

1/2 the onions line the bottom of the crock pot

Rub all your dry rub on your pork (before placing it in the pot of course)

Place the rest of your onions on the top of your pork, cover
crock pot and cook according to the directions below

RECIPE:
Serves: a lot (see paragraph above)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes (we cut some fat from our pork shoulder)
Crock Pot Cook Time: 5-6 hours on high, then 3-4 hours on low
6 Qt. Crock Pot used

4-5 lb. pork shoulder/butt (some fat removed), rinse and pat dry
1-2 yellow onions, sliced (we used one)

Dry rub:
3 T. chili powder
1 t. coriander
2 t. ground cumin
2 t. onion powder
1 T. dried parsley
1/4 t. chipotle chili powder
2 t. kosher or sea salt

Mix all dry rub ingredients together, set aside.  Rub dry rub all over pork.  Be sure to use all the dry rub.  We let our pork sit out on the counter for about 20 minutes.  Line your crock pot if you have liners (they make clean-up so easy!).  Place half your onions on the bottom of the crock pot.  Place your pork in the pot.  Place the remainder of the onions on top of the pork, cover and cook on high for 5-6 hours (we cooked it for 5 hours).  Then cook for another 3-4 hours on low (we cooked it for 3 hours).  After the 8 hours of cooking, we opened the pot, checked to be sure the pork was falling apart, then pushed the pork into the juice.  Turn your pot to warm and cover to let the top part of the pork that wasn't in the juice to soak up some liquid.

In the meantime, prepare any veggies you will be having with your pork.  Depending on which diet you're on and if you're not trying to lose weight, you can make a gravy with the drippings and use sparingly.  We dipped our pork in the juice to add a little moisture...it was very tasty just like that!

Remove pork from crock pot, take two forks and shred pork removing fat as you go.  We had this with sauerkraut and broccoli.  Made an omelet with some of the leftovers and are considering lettuce wraps with the half we froze.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Rotisserie Chicken and Basil Rolls

Rotisserie Chicken and Basil Rolls

The male half of this couple loved these!

Once a week the male half walks over to a little Vietnamese restaurant in Honolulu and picks up some tuna rolls...they are like Vietnamese Shrimp Rolls but with canned tuna instead of shrimp (he's allergic to shellfish).  Unlike the shrimp rolls, the tuna rolls are usually served with a fish sauce instead of peanut sauce.

Before deciding to phase out grains, we bought a 6 pack of these brown rice wrappers (see our post).  We had some leftover Rotisserie chicken and I knew I had to present it differently or the male half would give me that look....the "I need variety" look.  Put these down in front of him and got no complaints!

Spinning dried wrapper in water -- we recommend you use two hands

Place chicken and basil in the center of the wrapper.

Fold left and right sides in, snug, but be careful not to pull too tight

Pull bottom edge over chicken, tuck gently under and start rolling.
I usually use two hands to ensure an even roll, but I was taking photos
at the same time.

RECIPE:
Serves 1
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes
Roll Time: less than 10 minutes
Sauce: took a couple minutes to prepare

1/4 of the sauce recipe from our Vietnamese Patties -- this was too much for the male half of this couple, he doesn't like to use a lot of sauce for anything he eats

a heaping cup of shredded rotisserie chicken (nuked ours in the microwave until it was nice and hot)
2-3 basil leaves, sliced thinly
2 Happy Pho Brown Rice Spring Roll Wrappers
1 plate or shallow bowl of warm water
flat, clean surface to lay your wrappers on

If we had bean sprouts, the male half would have liked these even better.  You can add a lot of different veggies or meats in your rolls.

Prepare your sauce and set aside.  Using two hands (the photos show me holding the wrapper with one hand because I was trying to take photos at the same time...should've used the timer), dip part of the wrapper into the warm water and spin the wrapper a few times.  Before your wrapper becomes too soft, lay it on a flat, clean, dry surface.  Place your chicken and basil in the middle of the wrapper, not too close to the edges.  Fold the left and right ends over the chicken mixture carefully.   Pull the bottom edge up and over the chicken mixture, we usually do a slight tuck (gently) under the chicken mixture and roll carefully, you don't want to rip your wrapper.  Like sushi, roll firmly but gently.  You want everything snug in your wrapper.  Too firm will rip your wrapper and too gently will result in a very loose roll.

Serve as is or cut into pieces with the fish sauce.  Try to wrap your rolls close to the time you are going to eat them...leaving them in the refrigerator will eventually make the wrappers hard and not very nice tasting.

Enjoy...the male half did!

Dukan Stir Fried Shirataki Noodles

Stir Fried Shirataki Noodles

We loved this recipe!

We didn't use the Shirataki Tofu noodles, we just used regular shirataki noodles which to us are still Dukan friendly and low carb.  This was a nice light side dish to go with our beef hekka...the male half who doesn't care of Shirataki Tofu noodles used as a substitute for pasta actually liked this!

The great thing about shirataki noodles -- we both never feel bloated after we eat it -- we usually feel bloated after eating regular pasta.  Shirataki noodles are Dukan friendly and we found a Paleo - ish recipe for Fried Shirataki noodles -- although it does state that some wouldn't agree on shirataki being allowed.

Another, light and healthy dish to start of the new year!

Slice up cabbage, regular cabbage works too.  Bean Sprouts can
be added or substituted as well as other veggies.

In a dry, hot wok or pan, stir fry your noodles to remove moisture

Remove noodles from pan and add veggies, stir fry until soft, but not
too soft!

Add meat (optional) and stir fry, we would slice the meat thinner than
this.  Your meat will heat faster and less chance for it to dry out.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4 (if we had this on its own, we probably could have finished the entire wok of noodles)

Prep Time: 10-20 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes or so

2 - 13 oz bags of shirataki noodles (I'm sure the Shirataki Tofu noodles would work too)
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
6 pieces of won bok (Napa cabbage), sliced
a handful of sliced shiitake mushrooms, soak them in water first if yours are dried
2 slices of left over Rump Roast (optional, but if you do use the leftovers, it may be dry, try to cut the leftover roast into thin slices so you don't have to cook it long to heat it)
1 - 2  t. sesame oil
2 T. Gluten Free Tamari, low sodium soy sauce or Bragg's Amino Liquid - depending on which diet you are on

Rinse and drain noodles.  Over high heat and in a dry wok or pan, stir fry your noodles to dry out your noodles out.  We fried ours in two batches.  Place the dried, fried noodles in a dry colander.  Spray your wok with a little non-stick spray or olive oil if you're on the Paleo diet, stir fry garlic until fragrant.  Add veggies and stir fry until soft.  Add meat and stir fry until heated through.  Add noodles back to pan and stir everything up.  Add tamari (or soy sauce or Bragg's) and 1 t. of the sesame oil.  Stir and taste.  If you need more tamari/soy sauce or sesame oil, add a little more.  Be careful not to add too much sesame oil, a little goes a long way and too much can be overpowering...not to mention, it's oil!

We added a handful mizuna (another green) but it's optional.  Bean sprouts would have been great with these noodles also!

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Rump Roast (it's Paleo - ish too!)

Juicy Rump Roast

We loved this recipe!

The male half doesn't like to eat much meat these days, but he really enjoyed this rump roast.  As we combed the internet for Paleo recipes, we saved the Domestic Man's Perfect Eye of Round Roast recipe.  Wow, lean, inexpensive meat can be tender?  Yes, it can -- but the leftovers weren't as tender as the first meal we had from the roast.

We actually ended up with a Rump Roast -- couldn't find Eye of Round at any of the markets near us, only round steak but it was only about a pound.  We made two mistakes -- the first being we opened the oven because our roast fell over in the pan and the second being we took the roast out 10 minutes early -- so, our roast was a little underdone.  We bought a meat thermometer...but a cheap one and it's going in the trash since it didn't work :-(  The other issue with our oven is, it's our landlady's oven and it's probably as old as me or older -- it cooks unevenly, it's hard to bakes cakes or anything in that oven.  We turned the oven back on after realizing it was undercooked and followed the Domestic Man's instructions of 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes and cooked it to a medium rare (which is what I like).

We'll probably try this again.  It wasn't fatty, it was tender and juicy...but as mentioned earlier, the leftovers ended up well done and tough.  So, if we do try this recipe again, we'll make it when we have company over.    It was a nice comfort type food to have without it being super fatty.  We made a gravy with the pan drippings, cornstarch and water because we were worried the roast would be dry - but in our opinions, it really didn't need it.  The seasoning on this roast and the juiciness was just perfect.

We're classifying this recipe as a Dukan and Paleo - ish recipe since we didn't use grass-fed beef.

We ate about half of the roast.  The male half had his with mashed potatoes and I had it as a pure protein meal.  The other half we used in a frittata and a stir fried shirataki noodle dish -- recipes to come.  Next time we'll try adding some carrots to the pan.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
Prep Time: 35 minutes
Cook Time: 7 minutes per pound plus 2.5 hours with the oven off

2-8 lbs. rump roast or eye of round roast (we used 2.5 lbs)
1 t. kosher salt
1 t. black pepper
1/2 t. dried thyme
6 cloves garlic, minced

Mix together your seasonings then rub all over your cleaned roast (rinse and pat dry).  Leave your roast sit out for 30 minutes to allow it to come to room temperature before cooking.  Preheat your oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.  We don't have a roaster or a dutch oven, so we put our roast in a 9x13 baking pan lined with foil.  Place your roast in the oven and bake for 7 minutes per pound -- ours came out to 17.5 minutes.  Then turn the oven off and do NOT open the door.  Leave your roast in the oven for 2 1/2 hours -- if you follow instructions (not like us), your Eye of Round or Rump Roast should be perfectly cooked.

Take the roast out of the oven and use a meat thermometer to check the temperature, it should read between 130 and 150 degrees.  If it doesn't, do what the Domestic Man recommends and put it back in the oven at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes and check it every 10 minutes until it reaches 130-150 degrees.  Place your finished roast on a cutting board or plate and cover with foil and let it rest about 10 minutes before carving.

The Domestic Man says you can also roast the meat at 170 degrees for 2 1/2 hours.  Just remember, like our old, falling apart oven, results will most likely vary.

We had enough pan drippings to make some gravy with cornstarch but it wasn't necessary.  I had this by itself since I'm in the Cruise Phase of the Dukan Diet and it was my PP day.  The male half had his with broccoli since he's not trying to lose weight and he can do a PV day everyday.

Enjoy...we sure did!