A Great Way to Get In Some Exercise

For the past few months we've been trying to get out more, hiking, exploring...even during our vacations. It's a great way to get some exercise and see some amazing sights.   We always take our cameras along...photography is actually what brought us together :-)

We believe a lot of you are already following Flamidwyfe's blog, but just in case you aren't, Flamidwyfe also does a lot of hiking and day trips and check our her blog post on Taoguang Temple near West Lake in Hangzou!  Awesome photos :-)  Photos are a great way to see the world through someone else's eyes.  We often comment on getting our nephews inexpensive digital cameras, encouraging them to take photos (as in give them photo assignments) and cataloging them...it's always fun to see what they end up photographing.

Here are some of Flamidwyfe's photos (you can see all of her photos here)...sharing them because we love them, one of us is part Chinese and has never been to the "mother land"...so this is a great way of seeing part of China!

Zumba is fun and great exercise...but exploring with a camera in hand is priceless!

All photos featured in this post are all copyright Flamidwyfe and cannot be sold or reproduced without the written consent of the photographer.

Dukan Chicken with Olives

Chicken with Olives

We loved this recipe.  It reminded us of a southwestern inspired pasta.  (BTW, we love Flamidwyfe's blog and noticed she like a lot of other food bloggers post pics of their dishes during various cooking stages...so when possible, we will try to do the same!)

It was another busy weekend, but we were able to try two new recipes from two of our new food blog finds!  Our uncle is coming to town and he's staying with us so we spent a good part of Sunday prepping his room and doing some spring cleaning.

We chose these recipes because a storm system which brought chilly weather, amazing lightning displays, a lot of rain (as in some areas were flooded and received over 30 inches of rain within a matter of a few days) and even marble sized hail...we wanted something warm and "comfort foodish".

This first recipe by the Pioneer Woman went well with whole wheat linguine but would also go well with brown rice, quinoa or by itself!  We definitely had to Dukan this recipe as the Pioneer Woman cooks with a butter, etc.

Onions, bell peppers and garlic cooking

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
Prep Time: 15 minutes (or more if you're removing a lot of fat from your chicken)
Cook Time: 1 1/2 hours (most of the time is baking time)

1-2 T. olive oil or non-stick spray
6 chicken thighs, boneless, skinless, fat removed (if you're feeding big eaters, 8 pieces would be better)
1 medium red onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced (recipe calls for large pieces, but the male half doesn't like them in large pieces)
1 - 28 oz. can whole tomatoes, juices squeezed out and minced (recipe says chopped, but again, the male half won't eat tomatoes like that)
1 c. dry white wine (or low sodium chicken broth)
kosher salt and pepper
1/4 c. non-fat half and half with up to 1 T. cornstarch mixed in (depending on how thick you like your sauce - we used 1 t. since we didn't want it too thick)
1 c. whole green olives (stuffed)
12 oz. cooked whole wheat linguine, cooked al dente

Tossing chicken with pasta

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.  We don't own an oven proof skillet, so we made ours in our non-stick pan, then transfered the food to a square pan for baking.  Heat 1 T. oil in pan over medium high heat.  Add chicken and brown on both sides.  Transfer chicken to your baking pan.   Add more olive oil to the pan if needed, reduce heat to medium and add bell peppers, onions and garlic.  Cook for a couple minutes.  Add tomatoes and cook for a minute or two.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Pour in wine and stir.  Pour sauce over chicken, cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes.

Remove pan from oven, remove foil, add olives and half-and-half mix.  Shake pan gently to mix, cover and bake for another 15 minutes.  In the meantime, cook your pasta.  We tossed the chicken sauce with the pasta before serving.

This could be adjusted to fit into Cruise if you use the chicken broth and no pasta.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Quinoa - How We Prefer Cooking It

Quinoa

We recently started eating Quinoa.  We love it...but we usually have it maybe once every couple of weeks. Quinoa can be a rice replacement, made into salads, used in chili, etc.

Most bags of quinoa come with cooking instructions on the back and there are many recipes online on how to cook quinoa.  For us, we prefer cooking our quinoa with chicken broth and adobo seasoning in a rice cooker.  We also use less liquid than most recipes call for since we prefer our quinoa on the drier, crunchier side.  Our cooked quinoa resembles tabouleh.

You can serve your quinoa straight out of the rice cooker after you fluff it or you can add a number of ingredients to it including garlic, bell peppers, cilantro, lemon juice, spices, etc.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4 as a side
Prep Time: less than 5 minutes
Cook Time: automatic with your rice cooker (ours takes around 40 minutes or so)

1 c. quinoa
1 1/4 c. chicken broth (low sodium)
1/2 t. adobo seasoning (or 1 /4 t. garlic powder)
splash of olive oil (optional)

Add all ingredients to your rice pot (the quinoa we buy is ready to cook, no washing required), give it a mix and turn your rice pot on.  As soon as your rice pot turns off (ours beeps when it's done), open the pot, transfer quinoa to a large bowl and fluff your quinoa.  Leaving your quinoa in the pot too long will dry the quinoa out.

Enjoy!

Dukan Pork Chops Marsala

Pork Chops Marsala

We LOVED this!

Wow, we loved this so much we want to make this again...as in this week!   This week we found another recipe blog, the name caught our attention...Noble Pig...how could we not take a peek :-)  The woman who owns the blog also owns a vineyard called the Noble Pig.  We just couldn't wait to share this recipe with you...staying up late to blog about it!

A few great things about this recipe...it's delicious, we didn't have to change anything to make it fit our Dukan diet, it was easy and by the way, did we mention it's delicious?  The only thing we did change...the mushrooms.  As mentioned before, the male half of this couple doesn't like mushrooms...he doesn't like the "dirt" taste.  He will however eat straw mushrooms and other Japanese mushrooms...generally the ones grown above ground.

RECIPE:
Serves 3
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 13-15 minutes

6 thin cut, boneless pork chops, fat trimmed (ours were 1/4" thick, if you're using 1/2" thick, use 4 chops)
kosher salt and pepper to season pork chops prior to pan frying
3 t. olive oil, divided or non stick spray
1 can straw mushrooms or 1 pkg. cremini mushrooms (or button mushrooms)
1 lg. shallot, chopped (1/4 c.)
1/2 t. dried thyme
1/2 c. chicken broth
1/3 c. cooking marsala wine
1 t. cornstarch
1 t. water

Evenly season pork chops on both sides with salt and pepper.  Heat 2 t. olive oil in a pan over medium heat.  Cook pork chops for approximately 5 minutes or until browned on the outside and slightly pink on the inside.  Remove from pan and keep warm.

In the same pan, heat 1 t. olive oil.  Add mushrooms, shallots and thyme.  Cook for approximately 5 minutes or until shallots are softened.  Add broth and wine to mixture and cook for approximately 2 minutes.  In the meantime, mix the cornstarch with the water.  Add cornstarch mixture to pan slowly while stirring.  Your gravy will thicken.  Pour gravy over pork chops and serve immediately.  We had our pork chops with jasmine brown rice and grilled asparagus.

Enjoy...we sure did!

The Easy Parts and the Challenging Parts

Just like everything in life, the Dukan Diet for us has it's "easy parts" and it's "challenging parts".  Today we found The Pioneer Woman Cook's blog and wow, do her recipes look yummy!   You may have seen the Pioneer Woman's show on Food Network (we haven't).  A lot of her recipes use a lot of butter and naughty ingredients.  We saved a bunch of her recipes, signed up for email alerts and started to Dukan one of her recipes in hopes of trying it some time this weekend if we have time.

Oh before we forget...a bit of good news.  The male half of this couple started antibiotics for his infected gums and it seems to be helping.  The re-cutting of the gums has been postponed.

Back to the recipe...while Dukan'ing one of the Pioneer Woman's recipes which calls for sour cream and cottage cheese, we thought about how easy it was for us to give up regular sour cream and replace it with fat free sour cream.  Same with cheese, we have no problem using fat free or low fat cheese.  Not cooking  the fattier pieces of beef and pork was a challenge at first, but now we rather eat leaner pieces of meat.  Easy.

The two food items the female half has given up are desserts made with dark chocolate and thick cut french fries.  When baking at home, we have no problem using natural sweeteners...actually we only have natural sweeteners in our pantry since we used those long before we started the Dukan Diet.  It's the times when the desserts are made by someone else...it's been quite hard to say no.  For the male half, peanut butter and chips were the hardest for him...actually he refused to give up peanut butter for the diet, but it didn't effect his weight loss.  He loves peanut butter so he'd probably marry it if that were possible!

During the Attack and Cruise phases, we both followed the diet strictly (except for his peanut butter indulgence which he only has on the weekends).   The "giving ins" started during the last quarter of the Consolidation phase which included two vacations and the holidays.  Kudos to those who have been able to go back to Attack or Cruise successfully because after many attempts, we just haven't been able to go all the way back.

We are still maintaining our weights and when we cook more, we tend to lose a pound here and there.

We're still happy we went on the Dukan Diet.  We are still planning on eating like we're in Consolidation.  After our visitors leave, we will definitely get back to daily exercising versus 3-4 days of exercise.

Dukan Asparagus Chicken

Asparagus Chicken

NOTE: This is a scheduled post...we have friends in town and are going to be out and about for a week!

Another one of our favorite blogs is Closet Cooking's blog.  Kevin Lynch is the owner and he cooks everything from Canadian favorites, Hispanic favorites, Cajun favorites and Asian favorites.  We've spent quite a bit of time going through his older recipes and are now signed up for email alerts from his blog.

We've made a couple Chinese recipes from Closet Cooking's blog and have enjoyed it each time.  It's tasty, not too salty, easily Dukan'd and easy to make.  Last night we tried his Asparagus and Chicken recipe minus the cashews and we both loved it!  We used non-stick spray instead of oil to cook with but we may try this with a little bit of olive oil next time.  We also used just a splash of sesame oil but you can skip the sesame oil if you want.

This recipe would be great with quite a few different veggies - string beans, broccoli, mushrooms, etc.

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4 (if you don't eat rice, probably only 2)
Prep Time: 10 minutes (but if you're removing fat from your chicken, add another 10-20 minutes), marinading time - 15 minutes
Cook Time: 6-10 minutes

1 lb. chicken thighs or tenderloins, boneless, skinless, fat removed, cut into bite sized pieces
1 lb. fresh asparagus spears, cleaned, trimmed and cut into bit sized pieces
splash of sesame oil (optional)

Marinade ingredients:
1 t. garlic, minced
1 t. ginger, grated
1 T. soy sauce, low sodium
1 T. Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry
1 t. cornstarch

Sauce ingredients:
1 t. garlic, minced
1 t. ginger, grated
1/4 t. red pepper flakes (we'll probably use 1/2 t. next time)
1/2 c. chicken broth
1/2 T. cornstarch
1 T. soy sauce

Mix your marinade ingredients and marinate chicken for 15 minutes at room temperature.  Clean and cut your asparagus.  Heat wok over high heat, spray with some non-stick spray, stir fry chicken until just cooked (approximately 3 minutes).  Set chicken aside.  Lower heat to medium high, spray pan again with non-stick spray and add asparagus with the garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes.  Saute for approximately 3 minutes (your asparagus will be nice and crunchy...let it cook longer if you don't like crunchy asparagus).  Mix cornstarch and chicken broth from sauce ingredients together and add to pan with the soy sauce.  Simmer for a few minutes until the sauce thickens.  Remove from heat and add a splash of sesame oil.  Mix well and serve.

We had ours over jasmine brown rice.

Enjoy..we sure did!

Follow Us On Twitter!

Quick note before we run down to Waikiki for dinner with our out of town guests.  We finally set up a Twitter account!  Our account is @HapaCouple (no spaces).  We tried to add a "Follow Us" button but it seems to not be working.

Will work on it again next week.  We know some people rather use Twitter as a notification service :-)