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!