At the moment I'm going through a phase of forcing myself to eat.

The first week was smashing trying out several recipes in the "Dr Atkins - New Diet Cookbook" (£1 from our local Lions bookstall!)

The best I reckon was ...

Oriental Prawns

30g butter
25 g onion, chopped
3 slices of boiled ham, cut into strips
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
50g bean sprouts
quarter head cabbage, shredded
450 g raw prawns, shelled and deveined
4 servings of fish stock
paprika

The recipe says this is for two servings - 225 gms of prawns is way to much for me and I thought what massive appetites these Americans writers have.

However that was an error because the total grams of carbs at the bottom of thepage is given as 21.6 and the grams per serving as 5.4 which confirms this is a recipe for four servings not two!!!

Modifications to ingredients

Used chicken stock instead of fish stock and added a dash of Thai Fish Sauce
Used nutmeg instead of paprika
Added pepper and salt

Hate those American cup measures - please call it 4 fl ozs or 120ml

The Atkins recipe suggested baking for thirty minutes

Thought this might make an excellent stir fry instead.....

Followed a Chinese Recipe for Prawns with Vegetables - it had the same amount of prawns but a few Atkins banned ingredients such as cornflower and sugar that I left out!

I used Olive Oil instead butter for wacking all the vegetables in a hot wok for about two minutes and then adding the prawns and stir frying for another two minutes.

Added the liquid and brought to the boil and simmered for one minute.

Take care to cook the prawns (potential food poisoning risk) but not to overdo them as they will shrivel up and become tough.

The recipe chills well and is even better cold than hot.