April's A to Z Challenge is Here!

I'm one of those who didn't have a theme for this most wonderful challenge started by a great list of hosts. Check them out by clicking here. I have to give thanks to all of the minions as well! You can check out who the minions are by clicking here. I've had some ideas of what I could talk about for one month, but my focus changes so often, it's hard for me to commit to one or two ideas for a theme.

One of my ideas was recipes for people on the Atkins, or low-carb, diet. Thus, for A in this A-Z challenge, Atkins it is. In a nutshell, the Atkins diet is eating foods low in carbohydrates in order that your metabolism changes from burning glucose, or sugars, to burning stored fat. This process is called ketosis. Instead of counting calories, you count carbs. The benefits of this is losing weight, reducing or ending many medical issues caused by high carb diets, and it's a diet in which you don't go hungry. Anything with sugars, natural or otherwise, and starch, which converts into sugar in the body, are drastically reduced. Fortunately, there are options which help to put a curb to a lingering sweet tooth. So maybe I'll stick with the Atkins diet for a while in this challenge.

I learned to do this diet from reading the Atkins Diet book, which worked well when I did it for more than four months over 12 years ago. Here's how it works: In the first two weeks, you want to eat around 10 carbs a day or less to get the ketosis kicking in. Then you can up it to about 25 carbs. People adjust the levels depending on what they were taught.

Here's a recipe that I like to use even if I'm not doing the Atkins diet, because it seems better than using white flour and oil.

Non-fried, Crispy Pork Rind Chicken:

This is a simple recipe that requires chicken parts, chopped pork rinds and spices. You can use flavored or plain pork rinds.

1. Chop pork rinds using some form of chopper. I have a Ninja chopper that works great and quickly. You can add spices such as salt (not too much because pork rinds are already somewhat salty), parsley, cayenne pepper, paprika, garlic, and whatever else you'd like before or after chopping.

2. Put the chopped and spiced pork rinds in a plate or shallow bowl.

3. Wet your chicken parts, and coat them with the pork rinds.

4. Bake them on an oven sheet at 325F for approximately 40 minutes. The skin will be crispy and delicious.

# of carbs: 0

One great benefit is that it satisfies your craving for fried food. This recipe could even be used to cook fish. But since fish cooks so much quicker than chicken, the pork rinds didn't have enough time to crisp in the oven and I had to pan fry the fish to get the crispiness. I used Maki loins, and I tell you, it tasted just like the best fish sticks.