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 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!