Dukan Thai Style Chicken Burgers (it's Paleo-ish too!)

We loved this recipe!

I asked the male half of this couple what kind of burger he wanted the other weekend and he said "chicken!"....so after a quick search on the internet, we came across Gwyneth Paltrow's recipe for her Thai Style Chicken Burgers.  We made a few changes and it became an easy, tasty Dukan/Paleo-ish recipe.

We usually make turkey burgers in our house but the male half after all these years finally told me he doesn't care for ground turkey because it's mushy to him.  So, we have one more ground turkey recipe coming up since we had one package of ground turkey left in the freezer...from now on it'll be chicken burgers for us.

We are still using our old bottle of fish sauce, so we don't have the Paleo-friendly brand, Red Boat which is why we are calling this a Paleo-ish recipe.

RECIPE:
Makes 4 burgers
Prep time: approx. 15 minutes
Cook time: approx. 13-15 minutes

1 lb. ground chicken (dark meat, but if you're in the Cruise phase, you can try ground chicken breasts)
2 garlic cloves, very finely minced
1/2 c. cilantro, finely chopped
2 shallots, very finely minced
1 tsp. very finely minced red chili
2 tsh. fish sauce
1/2 t. pure sea salt
2 tsp. black pepper

Mix ground chicken with garlic, cilantro, shallots, red chili, fish sauce, salt and pepper.  Form 4 burgers.  Heat a grill pan over medium heat.  If you're on the Dukan Diet, spray your pan lightly with non-stick spray...if you're on the Paleo Diet, wipe some oil on your pan (we used Extra Virgin Olive Oil).  Grill for 8 minutes on the first side and about 5 minutes or until cooked on the second side.

We ate our burgers with broccoli steamed with adobo seasoning.

Enjoy...we sure did!

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 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 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!

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 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 Chicken Hekka

Chicken Hekka

A note about this dish -- for us, hekka is more about the sauce -- if you can't find bamboo shoots and other asian ingredients, feel free to use other veggies!

Another healthy recipe!  This recipe was ok -- but let us explain!

Chicken Hekka is something the female half of this couple grew up on.  I believe it was first cooked during the Hawaii Plantation days...fast, easy, nutritious, inexpensive, etc.  I've never seen Hekka on menus in Japan.  Back to our explanation -- our family ate Chicken Hekka at least once a month...sometimes more.  It was made with chicken thighs, canned bamboo shoots, canned button mushrooms and canned shirataki noodles (not tofu shirataki, but regular shirataki noodles.  When on sale, most of these ingredients were fairly inexpensive and you ended up with leftovers.  You can add other things like won bok (Napa Cabbage), other greens and you can even use beef although we never did.

Instead of making Hekka they way my family's made it for years, I decided to try someone else's Hekka sauce recipe and hindsight, I should have known it would be too salty for us...it called for a LOT of shoyu or soy sauce.  Actually, I do not have a recipe per se for Hekka -- we always, threw the chicken pieces in our wok, stir fried it, add the veggies, stir fried, then added soy sauce (you know, eyeballing it) then a little sugar (again, eyeballing it and of course, tasting it to see if we got the taste down).

We'll leave it up to you if you want to try this recipe.  We watered down the sauce significantly and it actually tasted better two days later when we used the sauce to cook beef and bamboo shoots.

We're classifying this recipe as a Dukan recipe even though it has a tablespoon of sake in it...we actually never used sake in our family hekka so you can leave it out if you like.  We're also considering this a Paleo - ish recipe since we used Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce (still have to transfer my two bottles of Bragg's Amino Liquid to the male half's house).  We're not sure if water chestnuts and bamboo shoots are on the Paleo or Dukan list, but it was a healthy dinner and I ended up dropping some weight this weekend!

RECIPE:
Serves 2 - 4 (two if you're in Cruise or on the Paleo diet and eat this by itself, 4 if you're in Consolidation and are having some sort of whole wheat starch)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: approx 20 minutes

1.25 lbs of chicken thighs, cubed (we would have just used 1 pound but we were in the Japanese market and they had chicken thighs cut up to make karaage or Japanese fried chicken so we bough the precut pack and removed as much fat as we could.
2 bamboo shoots, sliced (try to use fresh, we had canned ones on hand and wanted to use up)
1/2 can water chestnuts, sliced (optional)
8 pieces of won bok or Napa Cabbage or a similar green, sliced into small pieces
1 pkg. shirataki noodles (or tofu shirataki noodles) - depending on how strict you are on Paleo, you can omit the noodles if you aren't including these in your diet
a handful of mizuna cut into 2 inch pieces (optional, it was on sale this week)
1/2 c. Reduced Sodium Tamari Gluten Free Soy Sauce or Bragg's Amino Liquid (this was too salty for us - we ended up adding in about 2 - 2/12 c. of water, so you may want to start with 1/4 c. or less until you find a taste you like)
1 T. sake (optional)
1-2 T. natural sweetener (we used xylitol, although some Paleo peeps wouldn't agree on the use of xylitol), taste as you add
2 T. green onions, chopped

Other items you can add: shiitake mushrooms (sliced), button mushrooms (whole or sliced), tofu (if you're not on the Paleo diet), etc.

Mix Tamari (soy sauce or Bragg's Amino Liquid) with the sake and natural sweetener in a bowl -- see note above, start with small amounts of your soy sauce choice or else you may end up adding a lot of water like we did.

Depending on which diet you are, you can use non stick spray (Dukan) or a little bit your choice of fat if you're on the Paleo Diet -- to your pan over medium high heat.  Add chicken to pan and stir fry until 30% cooked.  Add veggies to your pan, cook until soft (usually just a couple minutes).  Add shirataki noodles, mix.  Add sauce, mix and let simmer for about 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked.

Serve as is for a Dukan Cruise meal or a Paleo meal or with brown rice if you're in Dukan Consolidation.  We ate this as a Dukan Cruise/Paleo - ish meal so it fed just the two of us for one meal.

NOTE:  We kept the leftover sauce and used it for a throw together Beef Hekka the next night.

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!

Dukan Baked Pasta

Baked Whole Wheat Penne

We loved this recipe!

Baked Nasoya Fettucini with Marinara

We made two different kinds of pasta -- whole wheat penne in one pan for the male half of this couple and Nasoya Fettucini Pasta in the other for me.  I took a bite of the whole wheat penne version and I must admit it just tasted better.  The dish baked well together.  With the Nasoya Fettucini Pasta, baking the dish did nothing to it...it was still a bit runny.  I thought the baking would dry up some of the liquid, but it didn't.  If we only had the Nasoya version, I would have been perfectly happy with it.  The sauce is still yummy and after eating a plate full of Nasoya pasta, you don't feel stuffed and bloated.

The male half of this couple is not trying to lose weight...as a matter of fact, often times he loses weight without even trying...he's very thin -- so I added more cheese to the top of his pasta.

Note -- we used the Nasoya Fettucini Pasta because we already had it in the fridge, but the macaroni shirataki pasta would probably work better.   Next time we make this, we'll probably chop up the shirataki noodles if we can't get our hands on the macaroni shaped ones.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-8, depending on which noodles you go for
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes (not including time needed to make marinara)
Cook Time: Pasta cook time, plus 30 minutes in the oven (not including time needed to make marinara)

Before mixing

1 1/2 c. cubed rotisserie chicken, skin and fat removed (we were at Costco)
1 recipe of our Dukan Mushroom Marinara
1/2 c. low moisture mozzarella, shredded
1/4 c. parmesan cheese or romano cheese, grated
4 bags of Nasoya pasta
(if you want to do a half and half like us, we used 2 bags of Nasoya Pasta and 1/2 a box of whole wheat penne or during Consolidation you can use all whole wheat penne)

Prepare pasta -- for the Nasoya Pasta, we like to boil them in salted water for about 4-5 minutes, then drain and dry your pasta as much as you can.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Mix pasta, marinara, parmesan and most of the mozzarella cheese together reserving some mozzarella cheese for the top of your pasta.  Transfer pasta mix into a pan or two pans.  The half and half version fit into 2 - 9" foil pans with some room to spare.  If I were doing this all in one pan, I would probably use a 9x13 pan since that's all we have!

Sprinkle remaining cheese over pasta and bake uncovered for 30 minutes.  You really don't have to use this much cheese, it is stretching the Dukan rules, but we ate it and still lost a pound over the weekend!

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Teri Chicken Stir Fry

Teri Chicken Stir Fry

 We liked this recipe, but we botched it a bit.

First of all, Teri is Teriyaki -- I'm not sure what others call it in different parts of the country, but if you go to a plate lunch place here, it's often referred to as Teri.  We used Larry  I'm sure if we followed the recipe exactly as is, it would be great, but we used Truvia instead of sugar to make it Dukan.  We used less Truvia than the recipe called for, but our mistake was not adding it in gradually and tasting the sauce to find the right sweetness.  It didn't come out bad, but it is a bit sweet.

Sunday was an extremely voggy day.  The vog was so thick even Diamond Head looked like there was a sheer drape in front of it.  The vog usually caused a person to feel sluggish and those with allergies often times suffer from headaches, bleeding noses, and congestion.  We had almost all of the symptoms!  Of course, this lead to both of us lazying around the house, forcing ourselves to get things done which meant dinner wasn't planned out.  We would have liked to make Teri Chicken in our grill pan, but due to the lack of time, we decided to use the sauce as a stir fry sauce.

We usually like to slice our stir fry meats thin, but in our mad rush, we cut our chicken tenderloins into chunks and only got to marinate the chicken for about 5 minutes.   Hopefully we'll have time to cook up some Teri Chicken in our grill pan this weekend.

As mentioned earlier, it wasn't bad, just poorly prepared!

RECIPE:
Serves: 2-4 (depending if you have brown rice or something with it)
Prep Time: less than 10 minutes if you already have your sauce prepared
Cook Time: 10-15 minutes

1 lb. chicken tenderloins (we cut ours into cubes, but next time we'll cut it into thing slices)
1 1/2 c. broccoli florets, cut into smaller pieces
Cold water or water with ice in it to cool down your broccoli

Marinade:
1/4 c. Dukan Teriyaki Sauce (Hawaii Style)

Stir Fry Sauce:
2-4 T. Dukan Teriyaki Sauce (or more, depending on your taste)

Marinate chicken for 15 minutes or longer.

Over high heat, bring water to a boil (we used just enough to cover our broccoli), add broccoli and boil for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.  Remove broccoli and place broccoli into cold/ice water.  Over high heat, spray a  stir fry pan or wok with a little bit of non-stick spray or a little bit of olive oil if you prefer.  As soon as your pan is hot, add chicken discarding marinade.  Add 2 T. of fresh teriyaki sauce to the pan.  Stir fry chicken until 85% cooked.   Remove chicken from pan and set aside.  Add broccoli and 2 T. fresh teriyaki sauce to pan and stir fry.  Add more teriyaki sauce if needed.  Stir fry for a minute.  Add chicken back and cook until chicken is done.

Serve as is for a PV/Cruise meal, with red or brown rice during Consolidation.

Enjoy....we sort of did!

Dukan Grilled Balsamic Chicken

Grilled Balsamic Chicken

We didn't care for this recipe...but we're posting it in case others may want to try it and hopefully improve it!

It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for us.  We love balsamic vinegar...especially when we're dipping our bread into the vinegar/olive oil mix at an Italian restaurant so we thought we'd love this recipe.   First of all, ours didn't look as good as 'For The Love of Cooking's' chicken did.  Ours started to char a lot.  The chicken ended up juicy and tasty, but perhaps we should have used less balsamic vinegar or something.

We followed the recipe with the exception of the flour and butter...oh and of course, we cooked ours in our grill pan.  The sauce was a bit too strong for us.

If you try this recipe and it comes out better for you or you tweak it in some way, please do share!  The nice thing about this recipe is we ate it during Attack.

Good luck!

Low Fat Korean Quesadillas

Korean Quesadilla

We loved this!

From our archives...we made this during our first time going through Consolidation.  We just threw it together since we had tortillas and cheese leftover from our Low Fat Filipino Bistek Quesadillas.   It was tasty!

RECIPE:
Serves 2
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

2 fat free tortillas
1 cup shredded rotisserie chicken, fat removed
8 - 10 slices of cucumber, you can slice them thinner than we did
1-2 T. gochujang (Korean hot pepper paste, contains some sugar)
splash of sesame oil
1 c. fat free cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 c. low fat Jarlsberg Swiss Cheese cut into small pieces (we got ours at Costco) - optional

Chicken mixture after stir frying

In a wok, stir fry cucumbers with a splash of sesame oil.  When cucumbers start to soften, add chicken and gochujang.  Stir fry until hot.  Remove from heat and cover.  In the meantime, heat a grill pan, spray with a little bit of non stick spray and place one tortilla on the pan.  Toast tortilla on both sides, approximately 2 minutes on each side.  Sprinkle some cheese on half the tortilla, spoon half your chicken mixture over the cheese.  Sprinkle more cheese on the chicken mixture, then fold tortilla in half.    Grill both sides of the quesadilla until cheese is melted.  Remove from pan, cut in half and serve.

We had ours plain...but you can serve this with salsa, hot sauce or more gochujang paste.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Shoyu Chicken

Shoyu Chicken

 This is a scheduled post.  If we do not respond to your comments right away, it's because we are on the road!  Thanks!

We loved this recipe...and our Pampered Chef Deep Covered Baker.

This is the first savory dish we've made in our Deep Covered Baker and we are definitely going to use it again.  Our boneless skinless chicken thighs came out moist!  This recipe can be made on the stove as well.

The Deep Covered Baker in the microwave

In Hawaii, the 'plate lunch' is a big thing.   It's something we grew up with as children...as a matter of fact, our parents did too.  We remember when plate lunches came in a box while others came wrapped neatly in butcher paper.  The plate lunch was always 2 scoops of rice (or as the local people say '2 scoop rice'), 1 scoop macaroni salad (no potatoes in the salad) and your main entree which many times would be covered in brown gravy or something not too healthy.  The plate lunch like many other restaurants across the U.S. and probably the world has evolved.  Most restaurants serve their plate lunches in styrofoam or 'green' containers and offer healthier selections along side their 'heart attack on a plate' selections.

Shoyu chicken is on most plate lunch menus and we don't really order it due to the amount of soy sauce and sugar used.  Plus, most restaurants will leave the skin and fat on the chicken thighs.  This is an easy, tasty dish to make and it really only takes 20 minutes in the microwave (Deep Covered Baker) or on the stove in a regular pot.

This recipe came from Rainbow Drive In in Kapahulu near Waikiki a very popular local style restaurant.

RECIPE:
Serves 3-4 people
Prep Time: 10-20 minutes (it took us longer since we removed all the fat from our chicken)
Cook Time: 20 minutes

2 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (fat removed)
1/2 c. natural sweetener (we used Xylitol)
3/4 c. low sodium soy sauce (we watered ours down)
1/4 c. white vinegar
1/8 t. kosher salt
1/8 t. pepper
1 clove garlic
1 inch ginger, crushed

Wash and drain chicken.  Place in Deep Covered Baker or pot.  Combine sauce ingredients.  Pour sauce over chicken.  If using a Deep Covered Baker, cover and cook on high in your microwave for 20 minutes.  If cooking on the stove, bring to a boil and cook for 20-30 minutes.

We didn't thicken our sauce, but if you would like to, use some cornstarch.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Chicken Broccoli

Chicken Broccoli

We loved this recipe!

Oh gosh, it's been a while since we've accessed our blog (see why here) we almost forgot the format we posted our recipes in!  Now to remember what kind of changes we may have made to the recipe!

The female half of this couple isn't a big broccoli fan...well, actually, the female half of this couple isn't a fan of restaurant cooked broccoli because there are quite a few restaurants who overcook their broccoli.  We prefer our broccoli cooked but still on the crunchy side...not almost mushy and discolored.  For months the male half of this couple has hinted it would be nice to have broccoli once in a while, so we found a small broccoli crown in Chinatown and decided to try Simply Recipe's Broccoli Beef recipe.  In most Chinese restaurants here, it's known as Beef Broccoli, so we're calling ours "Chicken Broccoli".    Ours isn't nearly as beautiful as Simply Recipe's, but it sure was tasty!

We'd definitely make this again and would use different vegetables from time to time.  We ate this during Cruise PV days even though it has oyster sauce and we saw no weight gain from it.

RECIPE:
Serves 2 (with no carbs)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: 5-10 minutes

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (all fat removed), cut into pieces
Small crown of broccoli, cleaned and cut into smaller pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 t. cornstarch dissolved in 1 T. water

For the chicken marinade:
1 t. soy sauce
1 t. Shaoxing Rice Wine or dry sherry
1/2 t. cornstarch
1/8 t. pepper

For the sauce:
2 T. oyster sauce (FYI - not Dukan friendly, you can try it without it, but it may not be as tasty)
1 t. Shaoxing Rice Wine or dry sherry
1 T. soy sauce
1/4 c. chicken broth

Mix marinade ingredients in a bowl.  Add chicken and mix until well coated, let marinate for 10 minutes.  Mix your sauce ingredients together and set aside.

Bring salted water in a pot to a boil and blanch your broccoli until tender-crisp, approximately 2 minutes.  Drain thoroughly and set aside.  We put ours in the microwave to keep it warm.

Heat a wok up over high heat.  Once your wok is very hot, spray with a little bit of non-stick spray and add chicken.  Spread the chicken out (preferably not touching in one layer).  Let chicken cook until it's 3/4 done without touching it, then flip chicken pieces over.  Add the garlic to the wok and cook for about a minute longer.  When chicken is almost done, pour the sauce over the chicken and add broccoli.  Give everything a good mix and let your sauce come to a boil.  Pour in the dissolved cornstarch and let boil until sauce thickens.  We mixed our chicken while doing this.

Serve as is or over brown or red rice on Consolidation Days.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Pollo Asado en Cazuela

Pollo Asado en Cazuela

We loved this recipe!

Side note: It's been a crazy, busy week with unexpected get togethers with friends and the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival is on, so not a whole lot of cooking going on!   The Merrie Monarch is known as the "World Series" of Hula competitions with festivities throughout this week and ends with a 3 day hula competition.  We have our turkey ham recipe we'll try to post...hopefully by the end of the weekend.

Back to this Cuban dish!  It's not the most colorful dish, but it was very tasty.  As mentioned in previous posts, we love Cuban food and this recipe is similar to Chicken Fricassee in taste.  Since this recipe calls for 1/2 c. of sour orange juice, we've classified it a Consolidation and Stabilization recipe.

For the sour orange juice, we used 1/4 c. freshly squeezed orange juice mixed with 1/4 c. freshly squeezed lime juice.  We got this recipe from several blogs...most of the recipes call for the same ingredients but use slightly different cooking techniques.

This past weekend was supposed to be our mostly fish weekend but we ended up dining out a few times due to putting in some overtime at work, etc.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6 (the female half did a Pure Protein Day, so she ate more chicken than she normally would)
Prep Time: 10-15 minutes
Cook Time: approximately 45 minutes

6-8 boneless, skinless chicken thighs, fat removed
1/2 large red onion, sliced
3-6 cloves garlic, minced (we used 6)
1/2 c. sour orange juice (1/4 c. orange juice, 1/4 c. lime juice)
salt to taste (we used 1/4 t. since we're watching our sodium intake)
olive oil or nonstick spray
1/2 c. dry white wine
1 bay leaf
1 t. black pepper

In a large ziploc bag, mix the garlic, salt and sour orange juice.  Add chicken (we usually rinse and pat dry our chicken after removing most of the fat).  Marinade at least one hour (overnight if you can), we marinated ours for about 6 hours.

In a large pan (we used our stir fry pan) brown chicken on high heat, set chicken aside.  Lower heat to medium high, add onions to pan and saute for a couple minutes.  Deglaze pan with wine, then add marinade, bay leaf and pepper.  Add chicken back to pan and simmer for 25-35 minutes.  We simmered ours for about 35 minutes.

The chicken was tender and very tasty.  The female half had chicken only, the male half had his over brown rice.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Chicken Adobo

Chicken Adobo

We loved this recipe.

Pork and Chicken Adobo are popular dishes here in Hawaii introduced by the Filipinos.  You'll find it on many menus, even at the local plate lunch places.  Each person has their own way of making adobo...some like it with a strong vinegar flavor and some prefer a lighter vinegar flavor.   The female half loves the vinegar flavor but the male half prefers a lighter vinegar taste so Splenda brown sugar is added to cut down on the vinegar flavor when we're dining together or feeding other people.

Most restaurants and home cooks make their Pork Adobo with pork belly...lots of fat and if using chicken, they like to leave the skin on.  We usually make Chicken Adobo at home and have always used boneless, skinless thighs.  This is the first time we've Dukan'd our recipe...so we used Splenda brown sugar, trimmed 90% of the fat off our chicken thighs and browned the chicken using non-stick spray and it came out great!  Of course, the female half could have done without the Splenda brown sugar :-)

We like making a big batch of Chicken Adobo for leftovers...this can be eaten by itself, over brown rice, shred the chicken up and make quesadillas or sandwiches.  We probably would even use it for lasagna.   Note:  We've made this in the crock pot, before Dukan, removing the fat and it gets dried out.  We may try to adjust the cooking time, but we are happy with the over the stove method.

RECIPE:
Serves 4-6
Prep Time: 5-30 minutes (depending on how much fat you're trimming from your chicken)
Cook Time: 1 hour, 10 minutes

2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (remove as much fat as you like)
1/2 red onion, sliced (you can use more, the male half wrinkled his nose when he saw the onion, but it melts down a lot during cooking)
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 t. kosher salt (optional)
1/2 t. peppercorns (or ground pepper)
1 lg. bay leaf, crushed
1/4 c. apple cider vinegar
1/2 in. ginger root, crushed
1/2 T. Splenda brown sugar (optional, if you prefer a stronger vinegar taste, omit sugar)
1/4 c. soy sauce, low sodium
1 t. cornstarch, plus 1 t. water if you want your sauce thicker

In a pot over medium high heat, saute onions and garlic a couple minutes, do not burn garlic.  Remove onions and garlic, brown chicken on both sides, then add garlic and onions back to pot.  Add the vinegar, salt, peppercorns, bay leaf, ginger root and brown sugar.  Simmer for 30 minutes over medium low heat, stirring occasionally.  Add soy sauce and simmer another 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  If the sauce is too salty, add water in 1/8 c. at a time to taste.    Add cornstarch slurry in if you want your sauce thicker.  This is the first time we've made it with cornstarch and we prefer it without.

Before Dukan, we used to make this with red potatoes too adding in the cubes of potatoes in with the soy sauce.

Enjoy...we sure did!

Dukan Spicy Chicken with Apricots and Olives

Spicy Chicken with Apricots and Olives

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, if you are following the Dukan rules to a tee, you may want to substitute the honey with a natural sweetener.  We haven't tried it that way because we're in the "in moderation" mode...we don't use honey all the time, not even once a week and using honey once in a while hasn't made a difference on the scales.

We loved this recipe!  Before we bought the apricots for this recipe, I ran the idea by the male half of this couple and he said "apricots?!"...but no fuss after that exclamation so we decided to try this recipe.  It is spicy and sweet...full of flavor.  Reminded both of us of Caribbean/Mediterranean food.

This recipe came from Noble Pig's blog and we followed it exactly as posted.  We'll probably try this recipe again with 1/4-1/2 c. white wine added to the recipe.  If you're in Cruise and don't want to wait, try making it without the apricots.    You'll definitely want to serve this over brown rice, quinoa, Dukan bread or something to enjoy the sauce.  We used 1 t. of crushed red pepper flakes and it wasn't too hot for us, but we like hot food.  Adjust the heat to your taste.

Forgot to take photos of the different steps, eek!

RECIPE:
Serves 2-4
Prep Time: 10-20 minutes (again, we had a lot of fat to remove from our chicken, sigh)
Cook Time: 45-50 minutes plus 24 hours to marinate chicken

1 1/2 lbs. boneless, skinless chicken thighs (all fat removed)
1/3 c. fresh lemon juice
1/3 c. honey
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. crushed red peppers (use 1/4 t. if you don't like spicy)
1 1/2 t. kosher salt
1 t. black pepper
2 t. ground cumin
1 t. smoked Spanish paprika (recipe says do not substitute)
1/2 c. pimento stuffed green olives (rough chop)
1/3 c. dried apricots, (rough chop)
1/3 c. cilantro, chopped (plus some for garnish)

In a small bowl whisk everything except the chicken, olives, apricots and cilantro.   Stir in the olives, apricots and cilantro.  Place chicken in large ziploc bag and pour marinade over chicken.  Marinade chicken for 24 hours (flipping bag over once in a while)...try not to skip the 24 hour marinade.

Preheat over to 375 degrees.  Place chicken in a baking dish (we used a square pan), no more than 2 quarts.   Pour the marinade over the chicken (including the olives and apricots).  Bake for 45-50 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

We served this over quinoa (cooked with chicken broth).

Enjoy...we sure did!

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!