Another Dr. Dukan Recipe: Flan!!

Flan

Preparation time: 20 minutes Cooking time: 45 minutes Serves 6. Attack Phase PP days


Ingredients:


3 cups of oat bran
2 whole eggs + 2 egg whites
1L skimmed milk
1 tbsp of Vanilla flavouring
½ cup Splenda Granulated Sweetener XyloSweet

Preheat the oven to 180°C / Gas 4.
In a medium mixing bowl, combine the oat bran and Splenda. Add the eggs, egg whites & vanilla. Mix until well combined and smooth. Add the milk 1 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. Once all combined, pour into a non stick oven proof dish and bake for 45 minutes.
Let cool and serve.

Spring Fling Salad (Meatless)

Spring Fling Salad

So I understand that it’s not quite spring yet but I really can’t help myself when the skies are sunny, the temperature 7 degrees and a produce section overflowing with asparagus. Once I had them in my basket I had to find something lovely and light to apply them to. That’s the best thing about really great produce, just finding some can inspire something to create something entirely new and who could say no to these beauties? Man I love food.

So I had the asparagus but now what? How did I want this to play out? For me a salad needs to have a roundness in both flavour and texture. It’s all well and good to have something that tastes really good but without some solid acoustics to back it up (crunch, crunch, crunch) it falls flat.  So, after way too much time pacing the produce aisle I produced this.

It’s got a little softness in the greens, crunch in the fennel and walnuts, sweetness in the grapes, green in the asparagus and edamame, heat from the red onion and the all important acid from the lemon to balance it all out. Given that I ate half a loaf of Lemon Poppy Seed Bread yesterday, this was exactly what I needed. Hope you enjoy this little flirtation as much as I did.

Spring Fling Salad

Would Rather Gather Original, serves 4
Prep Time: 25 minutes / Active Time: 5 minutes
For the Salad:
6 cups of spring greens, washed and dried
1/2 fennel bulb, very thinly sliced into half moons
1 small red onion, halved and thinly sliced into half moons
1 bunch thin to medium asparagus spears, trimmed*
1 cup edamame beans (frozen is actually preferable here)
1 cup red seedless grapes
1 cup spiced toasted walnuts
1 tbsp fresh chives, snipped
*tips should be 1.5 inches and the remainder of the stalks cut into 1 inch sections
For the Dressing:
1 small shallot very finely diced
1/2 tsp dijon mustard
1/2 tsp grainy mustard
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
sea salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste
Method:
1. Make dressing by placing all ingredients in a bowl and whisk or use an immersion blender to puree until emulsified or creamy. Chill in refrigerator until ready to use.
2. Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil and cook asparagus and edamame until they’re firm but tender, approx. 3-4 minutes. Once they’re cooked, submerge them in a bowl of iced water to halt to cooking process and keep them crisp. Drain aside.
3. Drain and pat dry asparagus and edamame then combine all salad ingredients in a large salad bowl. Add enough dressing to lightly coat the entire salad, toss and serve garnished with spiced, toasted walnuts.
Add some toasted crusty bread slathered with Earth Balance Butter you’re good as golden.
NOTE: If you’ve never worked with asparagus before, you may not know you can’t use the entire spear. The bottoms are quite woody and tough. To ensure you’re only working with the usable parts, hold the each end of the spear in your hands and bend until it breaks. Everything attached to the tip goes in your belly. Everything attached to the end goes in the bin. Cool?

Quinoa With Shallots and Asparagus

Sheri Wetherell

– April 25, 2011Posted in: Calendar, Quick & Easy, Recipes & Cooking

Sauteéd (or grilled) asparagus and shallots add wonderful flavor and texture to this healthy – and easy – quinoa dish. Try it for Meatless Monday!
Quinoa With Shallots and Asparagus
1 cup quinoa
2 cups vegetable stock
2 shallots, finely chopped
15 spears thin asparagus, trimmed of woody ends
1 tablespoons olive oil, divided
Sea salt and pepper, to taste
Rinse quinoa under cool water until water runs clear; set aside to drain.
In a medium-sized saucepan bring stock to a boil; add quinoa. Bring back to a boil then reduce heat to a low simmer.
Cover and simmer 15-20 minutes or until liquid has absorbed.
In the meantime, finely chop shallots and set aside.
In a skillet, heat 1/2 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high and toss in asparagus spears; saute until nicely browned.
Remove from pan and slice at an angle into 1.5-inch pieces. Set aside.
Reduce heat to medium, add the remaining oil and sweat the shallots (do not brown them). Set aside with asparagus.
Fluff the quinoa with a fork, then add shallots and asparagus.
Stir until combined.
Season to taste with sea salt and pepper.

A secret for when you're faced with stress and the cravings it produces: vertical stretches

slimming secret of Dr Pierre Dukan

A secret for when you're faced with stress and the cravings it produces: vertical stretches

Stress effects weight in two ways: by triggering cortisone secretion which then causes water retention and traps fat and also by encouraging us to eat fatty and sugary comfort foods to deaden the unpleasantness of stress...

When you start to feel stress, I can suggest a technique so that you neutralize it before you see its negative effects develop.

This technique, stretching-breathing, combines two simple actions which reinforce each other.

Stretching: this concerns the trapezius muscles, the two muscles which are the most receptive to stress and whose tension reflects that in your mind. The trapezius muscles are the 2 muscles that connect the neck to the shoulders and extend behind down to the lower back. To stretch them, all you have to do is to push the top of your head up towards the ceiling whilst at the same time dropping your shoulders down as far as you can. Extending the trapezius muscles relaxes them and their relaxation in turn relaxes your mind.

Breathing: at the same time breathe in slowly until your lungs are completely full and then stop breathing in for a maximum of 3 seconds. Then breathe out slowly until your lungs are emptied.

With 5 ins and outs, you will have completely replenished the air in your lungs, released your intercostal muscles and your diaphragm and completely relaxed your trapezius musles.

This takes 75 seconds, hardly more than a minute but you are now safe from stress and its after-effects, your craving for some compensation.

The Dukan Diet

So . . .  He posts a "slimming secret on his site every day, so I will harvest the ones I think will work for me.  I think I'll LIKE this one!

Slimming secret of Dr Pierre Dukan

Speed up your weight loss with oat bran tabouleh

A "joker" dish in case your motivation drops.

You are dieting and you'd like to lose lots of pounds, you can see that you are shedding them but you want to speed it up? You've reached a bit of a low ebb and your motivation isn't quite as high?…

Try this solution. For us tabouleh is often a sort of cold couscous with a few vegetables and lots of olive oil. Real tabouleh, Lebanese tabouleh, has very little bulghur wheat - cracked wheat - but loads of parsley. This is what I am suggesting you try.

If you are on your own: finely chop a bunch of parsley, half a bunch of coriander and half a bunch of mint. Dice one small onion and one tomato and squeeze the juice of one lemon. Mix it all together in a large bowl and keep this in the fridge. When you are about to serve the tabouleh add two table spoons of oat bran.
Try it at lunchtime 2 to 3 days running and you'll discover why parsley is the most sought after plant, full of carotene and natural vitamin C (i.e. not the kind you find in tablets).