The Stewart Score: A refresher

A few of you have been asking what the Stewart Score is all about!

I wrote about it a while ago, it is how I rank each recipe - letting you know if I think it was "A Good Thing" and Martha-worthy, or "Not Worthy".

It is a simple score card with three key categories that can earn a 1 or a 2, as shown below:

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1 or 2
Taste: 1 or  2 
Ease: 1  or 2

1= Not Worthy
2 = Its a Good Thing

If you try any of my posted recipes, post your own Stewart Score to let me know how it turned out for you!

                     * Taken at the Wired Business Conference, NYC. I sat behind her.
                        One of the best afternoons of my life. She smelt like a dream. Her hair
                        was perfection...in case any of you are wondering, of course.

Low-Fat Greek Balsamic Dressing

Summer is finally here in Amsterdam. When its hot out, I always feel like crunchy, crisp, cool foods - like salads!

On the Dukan diet, most dressings are off limits as they contain loads of oil, salts and fats.

Here is a deliciously simple low fat and high flavour recipe I hope you enjoy as much as I do!


What You'll Need (14 x 1Tbps servings):

• 1 medium-sized bowl
• hand blender
• jar with lid
• 2 Tbps low-sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1.5 Tbsp of your favourite Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbps honey or honey-substitute (I use a xylitol-based substitute)
• 3 Tbps of non-fat Greek yogurt (thicker and creamier the better)
• If you are not on the Dukan diet, you can also add in 1 tsp of grapeseed oil (or olive oil). This will just make the dressing a little smoother

What You'll Do:

• in your medium-sized bowl, add in all the ingredients
• blend with a hand-mixer until smooth
• store in a jar or some sort of sealed container
• keep in your fridge until ready to serve. This dressing keeps for about one week in the fridge.

This dressing also works as a nice dip for raw veggies. To make it thicker, double the amount of Greek yogurt.

I love this dressing with watermelon - there is something so delicious about balsamic and watermelon. One of my favourite, pre-Dukan diet salads recipes had the following ingredients:

Cubed watermelon
Spinach
Basil
Red onion
Candied walnuts
My Greek balsamic dressing

Let me know what you try with this dressing - would love new ideas and flavour combos!


The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5 (its kind of a unattractive shade of brown) 
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Easy Healthy Roast Dukan Vegetables

Today is Friday. That means my favourite day of the week is tomorrow.
The Saturday food and organic market in my neighbourhood.
I get all my fresh vegetables, bread, eggs, cheese and herbs here.
That also means I have a lot of semi-sad looking leftover vegetables in my fridge I need to use up as I hate wasting food.

A friend of mine calls this 'creme du fridge'. I love that. Using what you have in your fridge to make a meal, no recipes required.

That is the inspiration of this super easy and healthy side dish.

What You'll Need:

• 1 lemon
• 1 Tbps grapeseed oil (or olive oil. I like grapeseed oil as I just watched this news story on olive oil and found out the Italian mafia is notorious for olive oil trafficking. No, for real!)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper...or something like that. I don't measure.
• any Dukan friendly veggies you have kicking around
• some of my favourite veggies, roasted are: 
• cauliflower
• eggplant
• zucchini
• tomato (as I can't stand them raw...too unpredictable)
• carrots
• onions
• broccoli
• NEVER cucumber. Cooked cucumbers are super gross.

What You'll Do:

• pre-heat your oven to 180C
• cover your baking tray with tinfoil
• mix the oil, pressed garlic and pepper into a small container
• rough chop all your veggies and place them into a sealed bag. You may want to use a large ziplock bag...of which there are none here in The Netherlands

• pour in the oil mixture and shake the heck of of the bagged veggies
• pour, evenly on your foiled pan
• squeeze a little lemon juice over top for good measure
• twist on another sprinkle of pepper
• bake for 20-30 minutes (baking time will be dependent on the veggies you use. Heartier veggies, like cauliflower and broccoli take longer than say tomatoes)
• that's it!

These go great as a side with my Polenta, Oatbran Chicken Nuggets!

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Dukan Polenta Oatbran Chicken Nuggets

The Dukan diet friendly polenta, oatbran chicken nugget is one of my favourite recipes. Its easy, healthy and for a nugget, pretty darn handsome.

Even Martha loves a handsome nugget.

                     I placed the sliced lemons on the plate to make them look real fancy.

What You'll Need (serves 2):

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup cornmeal, or 'polenta' as it is called in the Netherlands
• 1/2 cup of oatbran
• 1 Tbps Herbs de Provence (if you can find them in your neck of the woods. If you can't, dried rosemary and pepper is darn tasty, too). I like using Herbs de Provence, as it makes me sound so continental
• 1 medium-sized egg
• George Foreman lean, mean, fat-busting grill...or suitable alternative. You can also use a non-stick frying pan to cook these little buddies.

Unfortunately (for me), no-one knows who the heck George Foreman is in The Netherlands, so I had to buy a sorry excuse for the lean, mean grilling machine...but, as long as it grills and is none stick - it'll do me.

What You'll Do:

• dice your chicken into slightly-larger-than-bite-sized pieces, ensuring you remove all the skin and weird bits you want to forget about
• crack your egg into a small bowl
• mix your cornmeal, oatbran and spices into another, separate small bowl

• plug in George to get him nice and toasty...or heat up your pan
• dip each piece of chicken into the egg (this is called 'dredging', which I think sounds morbid and eery, so I shall day 'dip')
• make sure each chicken piece is not too drippy before you place it into the dry mixture

• fully cover the chicken piece with the dry mixture
• place into George or onto your pan

• cook until done (Martha likes chicken cooked, and so should you)
• that's it!

Crispy, tasty and a nice accompaniment to a Dukan-friendly side dish, like these easy, healthy, roast Dukan veggies.

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

A Dukan Orange Cake...Attempt

It is pouring in Amsterdam today so what better time to bake?
I pulled out my shiny new French Dukan cookbook to see what caught my eye (and had few instructions that I had to then translate).

I love citrus, it cheers me up, and a dreary day like today could use a little pick-me-up.

The gluten and sugar-free Dukan recipe called 'Far a l'Orange' appeared delicious...and easy.
Two things I value.
I am not sure what 'Far a l'Orange' means...when I translate it, it says 'Far Has Orange'.
Thanks for nothing, Google Translate.

I would like to think it means 'Exotic Orange Cake Tasting of Faraway Lands'.

Look how fluffy, neat and unburned it looks! I am sure I can recreate this tasty 'lil guy (she says optimistically before attempting...).

What You'll Need:

• one mixing bowl
• cute little baking containers as shown in the recipe (of which I have none, so I used muffin tins...don't tell Martha)
• one large orange so you can zest the heck out of it
• 8 Tbps of fat-free quark (or low-fat Greek yogurt)
• 2 eggs
• 3 Tbps of your powdered sweetener of choice
• 6 Tbps of cornstarch
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp orange flavouring
• 4 Tbsp of low-fat milk powder

What (the recipe says) You'll Do:

• pre-heat your oven to 160C
• mix all the ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl (I like to mix my wet and dry ingredients separately, as Martha would do that, but when and how you introduce your wet and dry is totally up to you)
• pour your batter into your cute little cake pan, or muffin tins (for me it made 8 muffins)
• according to the recipe, bake for 30 minutes...if you like things burned!! Its a good thing I kept an eye on these little babies as they cooked super fast. I left them in for 15 minutes and the tops were already turning an unsavoury shade of charcoal

• on a positive note, they smelled like a little piece of heaven whilst cooking
• on a negative note, they semi-exploded, glooping out angry looking batter projectiles which, thank goodness, did not drip into my oven. Burny, drippy ovens are the worst!
• that's it

Admittedly, they are not that handsome of a cake. Martha would shake her well-coiffed head and send me packing.
They look like they are sticking their batter tongues out at you, mocking your failed culinary attempts.

They taste delish though.
Really and surprisingly so. They also have a nice, light texture, which surprised me with so much heavy quark.

I am not easily defeated. A Munro hates to loose. I will try this recipe again!


The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 0
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Dukan Cauliflower Mashed 'Potatoes'

Potatoes are not a part of the Dukan diet until you reach the stablization phase and can start incorporating 'celebration meals' and once-per-week starches.

I am from the Canadian Prairies and therefore a meat and potatoes kinda gal. I am really trying to break that habit though by incorporating other vegetables that offer me a lot more in terms of health benefits.

I started reading up on the wonders of cauliflower (or, 'bloemkool' in Dutch:) and thought I would try to create the perfect cauliflower mashed 'potato'.

Did you know cauliflowers are:

• an excellent source of vitamin C - a great anti-oxidant (I know, and they're not even orange;)
• very high in vitamin K - which helps aid in decreasing inflammation
• high in fiber
• a good source of protein
• a super tasty alternative to potato...so here is the recipe!

What You'll Need (serves four):

• a blender
• one medium-sized cauliflower
• one 1/2 cube of low-sodium chicken stock
• 1.5 cups of water (to be boiled)
• generous twist of freshly ground pepper
• large dollop of fat-free plain Greek yogurt (my favourite kind is the Total 0% brand - super thick and creamy)

                                I know what you are thinking...I should be a hand model.

What You'll Do:
I have a steaming oven (and so does Martha, I'm sure), so I use that to steam my vegetables, but, if you don't, never fear - you can steam your cauliflower the conventional way on your stove top by covering it in seasoned water and letting it simmer, covered, until soft.

• prep your cauliflower by removing all the green leaves and stem
• chop your cauliflower into smaller chunks 
• place the pieces in your pan, cut side down
• boil 1.5 cups of water
• place your 1/2 cube of low-sodium chicken stock in the boiled water
• stir until dissolved

• Pour the chicken stock mixture over your cauliflower
• Let simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until very tender

• Using a slotted spoon, take the softened cauliflower from your steaming pan and place inside your blender
• Plop in your dollop of fat-free Greek yogurt

• Twist in your pepper
• Add a whisper of the remaining, seasoned water (I usually use about 1/4 cup but this depends on the freshness of your cauliflower. If it is older and drier, you may find you need a little more water. Easy does it though as you don't want your mixture to be too watery)
• Mix through using a spatula
• Blend until semi-smooth (I like leaving a few little lumps as it makes the cauliflower mixture much more believable in it's potato disguise)
• Remove from blender and serve with another twist of ground pepper on top
• That's it!

I just love this recipe as you can eat this as it is, as a side of mash, or you can use it as a topper. For example, I love to make Dukan-friendly 'Sheppard's Pie' where you add this on the top. Or, when I make zucchini boats, I add this onto the top.

Other additions you can try with this recipe:

• If you fancy garlic, add in a clove of this either in the seasoned water mixture while steaming for a milder taste, or into the blender for a stronger taste
• Not on the Dukan diet? Add in some shredded cheese while blending
• Don't have low-fat yogurt on hand? Use low-fat quark or even low-fat cream cheese.

Play around with it. I would love to know what other recipes you use this on!

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5 (Its hard to make them magazine-spread worthy looking)
Taste: 2
Ease: 2

Getting the Smell of Garlic Off Your Hands

No Vampires in your neck of the woods?
Wearing rubber gloves when making Greek food getting you down?

Did you know you can neutralize the smell of garlic on your hands by rubbing them on stainless steel?

Once you are through chopping, dicing and or pressing your garlic, your nimble little fingers often smell like the delicious herb. For me - not the sexiest of smells.

All you have to do is rub your hands inside your stainless steel sink, or, you can buy little, cute pebble-shaped stainless steel pieces to rub against your hands if you don't have such a sink. They are called stainless steel soaps.

I LOVE this little trick as I use garlic quite a bit in my cooking as it is rich in antioxidants. You can also use this trick when cooking with onion and other pungent-smelling herbs and foods.

Hope this little tip leaves you smelling fresh....just the way Martha would like you to smell.

Dukan Spicy Chicken Stir 'Fry' Recipe

On the Stabilization phase of the Dukan diet, you can eat the approved meats and vegetables everyday. After the alternating Cruise phase, it is the good life!

One of my most favourite dishes is a spicy stir fry. The best part is you can make something this tasty and it still be healthy, sugar-free, gluten-free and Dukan friendly!

What You'll Need (for two people):

• Two chicken breasts
• One sweet red pepper (or, zoete rood paprika...I am learning Dutch!)
• Whatever Dukan vegetables you think are delicious when spiced-up and hot (I like anything like leeks, bean sprouts, carrots, broccoli, eggplant, zucchini, cabbage, onion...anything I have in the fridge that doesn't go soggy when cooked)
• For this recipe I usually super cheat and get a bag of pre-cut veggies (Martha would not approve but it saves me loads of time chopping when I have had a busy day and don't have much time to cook)
• Ingredients for my Dukan spicy marinade
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cucumber (or komkommer;) to use as a garnish

What You'll Do:
Its all about timing with a stir fry, you don't want your veggies overcooked as you are still waiting for your chicken to cook. This is how I do it:

• Make your Dukan spicy marinade
• Prep your veggies, cut them all to a nice, chewable sizes
• Dice your onion. I was taught a trick from my friend Keith years ago on how to dice an onion easily. I have tried to show you in this picture, but, basically cut the onion in strips in one direction, then rotate around and slice in strips, so you have a hatched pattern. Then, when you slice your onion, all of your pieces will be perfect little squares. I love this trick!

• Get your wok (or large, non-stick frying pan) out and sprinkle your diced onions into it
• Cover your onions in water, not all the way, but just enough so they have enough to gently boil in. This is called water sauteing.  This technique is a very helpful trick on the Dukan diet. We are used to sauteing onions in butter or oils, but with water you get none of the fat and all of the taste! To be honest, heck yeah I miss the taste of butter sauteed onions...but my butt doesn't!

• Now, prep your chicken
• Wash the breasts (that made me feel dirty typing that) in cool water
• Pat dry with paper towel. I have zero idea why you do this but it was something my Mom told me to do and I have done it ever since. So, you have now been told. Choose your choice
• Cut off any remaining skin or weird, wiggly bits
• Chop into similar-sized pieces
• Heat up your non-stick medium sized frying pan
• Once hot, toss in your chicken pieces
• I like to season them with a little freshly ground pepper (so Martha of me)
• Brown them on each side
• Pour the Dukan spicy marinade over top 
• Toss the chicken to ensure each piece is covered in sauce
• In your wok, put in any vegetable that takes longer to cook - for example, this is a great time to put in your broccoli or cauliflower
• Keep stirring your saucy chicken for another few minutes
• Add in the rest of the vegetables into your wok
• Pour in 1/4 (or less) water into the wok and stir
• Once your chicken is done (you can tell as the sauce will be nice and sticky like shown below), pour it over top of your vegetables

• Stir
• I find you don't need any extra sauce for your vegetables if you stir in your chicken - it is the perfect sauce, veggie, meat ratio

• To serve, I use a slotted spoon to drain off any excess liquid, then once in the serving bowl, I sprinkle my chopped cucumber on top. You don't want to cook these as hot cucumbers are super gross. Trust me.

That's it. A stir-without-the-fry.
No oil, gluten-free, sugar-free, and Dukan friendly.
Plus it's easy, tasty, healthy and filling. You don't need rice or anything.


The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2
Ease: 2 (maybe a little less easy if you choose to chop all your veggies...you keener;)

Macarons Not Macaroons

Today my friend Danielle and I made, what I thought were macaroons.

Did you know they are not technically called macaroons, but 'macarons'?! (Try pronouncing that in your finest French accent and it sounds very posh.)

A macaroon can be made with a variety of differing ingredients based on the region of the world it comes from. For instance, in Canada, we traditionally call macaroons those deliciously sweet coconut mounds that when baked are chewy and slightly crispy.

While a macaron is the traditional meringue-based treat made with egg whites, icing sugar and ground almonds which come in a rainbow of Willy Wonka-esque colours. They easily melt in your mouth and originated in Italy, not France as I thought (though I'm sure Martha knew). Now France has totally took ownership of these little delights and made them into the popular treat they are today.

We made chocolate and raspberry macarons. They are totally not sugar free or Dukan friendly, but lots of fun to try and turn out such pretty results.

I didn't create the recipe, so here is a great link to a recipe you can try if you are so inspired (of course it is a Martha recipe!).

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2
Ease: 1 (they are fiddly and you need a couple of solid hours to make them)

Low Fat Dukan Baba Ganoush Recipe

I love dips.
Salsa, guacamole, spicy black bean, tzatziki, 7-layer...so many dips!

On the Dukan diet there are not many dips you can make that are diet friendly so last night I found an eggplant in my fridge drawer I had to use up and thought about making a diet-friendly, low-fat, gluten-free baba ganoush!

Researching baba ganoush recipes, there is quite a bit of oil and tahini in most recipes - both ingredients not permitted on the Dukan diet. So, I improvised and what I came out with even impressed my husband (and if Martha could taste it, I am pretty sure she would approve).

Best things? It is super easy to make, eggplant is in season right now, eggplants are antioxidants.

What You'll Need:

• One eggplant
• Shake of your favourite chili pepper spice (optional)
• A couple twists of freshly ground pepper
• Small twist of freshly ground sea salt
• Squeeze of 1/2 a lemon
• 1tsp grapeseed oil
• 2 small or one large clove(s) of fresh garlic
• 1/3 cup fat free Greek yogurt
• 1/8 cup of water

What You'll Do:

• Wash your eggplant
• Heat your oven to 180C (375F)
• Cut your eggplant into halves
• Place cut eggplants, skin down, on a baking tray for 20 minutes or until soft
• In a blender, add in the chili, pepper, salt, lemon juice, oil, garlic, yogurt
• Remove your eggplant from the oven, let cool for 20 minutes
• Cut up the eggplant into smaller chunks
• Place the eggplant chunks into the blender
• Pour your water over top
• Start to pulse, then puree your mixture, scraping down the sides of the blender as you go
• If the mixture is too thick, add another 1 tsp of water at a time until desired consistency is reached
• Mix until thoroughly combined
• Pour into a cute serving dish
• Enjoy with your favourite dip-able veggie, or spread on your portion of bread slices (when on the stabilization or consolidation phase). What also may be nice is to use this as a topper or a spread. I love lean-ground beef stuffed peppers, having a dollop of this on the top would be lovely!

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5 
Taste: 2 
Ease: 1.5

Grapeseed oil and lemon juice are not allowed, but "tolerated" (when in small quantities) on the Dukan diet. And, because you won't (or maybe you will;) eat all this dip in one day, you are good to go!

Dukan Sugar-Free Chocolate Fat-Free Yogurt Muffins

A key to success on the Dukan diet is always having Dukan friendly snacks at hand. A perfect little snack that soothes the sweet tooth is the muffin.

Easily transportable, not messy, simple to make.

This is a recipe for one of my favourite Dukan diet muffins - the sugar-free chocolate, fat-free yogurt muffin.

This recipe couldn't be any easier, take my word for it!

What You'll Need:

• 8 Tbsp of oatbran
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/3 cup sugar substitute, like Ideal
• 3 Tbsp of sugar-free chocolate powder (I use the Ghirardelli kind you can get in the Netherlands)
• 1 cup of non-fat Greek yogurt (you can also sub in non-fat quark, or vanilla-flavoured non-fat yogurt. I use non-fat Greek yogurt as it is usually thicker and makes the muffins a little firmer)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 eggs 

What You'll Do:

• Pre-heat your oven to 180C (or 350F)
• Get two medium-sized bowls ready
• Line 12 muffin tins with muffin cups (make sure they're cute so Martha would approve)
• In one bowl, mix together your dry ingredients until fully combined - oatbran, baking powder, sweetener, chocolate powder
• In the other bowl, mix in your yogurt/quark, vanilla then your 4 eggs (I will usually crack them one by one in a separate little container, like the measuring cup I just used, to ensure each egg is good before I add them into the larger mixture)
• Mix the liquid mixture thoroughly until it is a consistent colour and texture
• Add the liquid mix into the dry mix and stir until smooth 
• Pour the combined mix into the lined muffin tins, filling to about 3/4
• Let bake for 12-18 minutes, or until cooked through - my oven runs hot, so 15 minutes works for me, but start checking in on them at the 12 minute mark
• Let cool
• Devour 

These little babies are great snacks and will keep for one week if you keep them refrigerated. They also freeze like little stars.

I like to heat mine up and add a dollop of fat-free plain cream cheese on top (then I imagine I am eating a fancy cupcake).

You can also make these more interesting by:

• Add in cinnamon, or nutmeg, or both!
• Use orange extract instead of vanilla and toss in some orange zest
• Top them with Dukan whip cream (which I will post for your shortly)
• Add in red food colouring and top them off with non-fat cream cheese (kinda just like a Red Velvet Cupcake!)

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 2
Taste: 2 
Ease: 2

French Food Pictures

While in France last week, I took a photo of some of my most favourite dishes I think I can recreate, Dukan style along with some there is no way I can make healthy and will just look at these pictures and remember how super tasty they were.

A cucumber, tomato and goat cheese salad.

This will be easy to recreate and be Dukan friendly. They used a vinegar and oil dressing and thinly sliced cucumbers, marinated white onion and sliced tomatoes. All Dukan friendly items, except the oil. I would cut this out as it really isn't need to enhance the taste.

The wheel of goat cheese was incredible, easily the best goat cheese I have ever had (in Canada, I find it so salty). For this to be Dukan friendly, I would try to find a lower fat version, or weigh the amount to ensure only a 40g portion is served.

They sprinkled the dish with peppers and parsley.
Simple and delicious!

This cheese cake was the sweetest thing. This was at the Honfleur Saturday market and called St Amour (St Love) Cheese Cake. You can see the cake mold is in the shape of hearts when you cut individual slices!

I know there are many Dukan cheese cake recipes out there, but it is really hard to find non-fat or even low fat cream cheese in the Netherlands, so I am not sure I can try to attempt this one...so let's just enjoy the picture.

This was a half roast chicken, marinaded in Calvados and served with steamed green beans on a bed of lettuce. The little round, deep fried accompaniments were of undetermined origin. But, incredibly delicious. They tasted like little corn breads, deep friend but less corny...

This can easily be made Dukan friendly. Roast the chicken in the skin, but remove it before you tuck in. Calvados is an apple brandy, which I picked up (as the Dutch Apple Pie also called for this ingredient, which just happens to be local to Normandy). I think I will try this recipe for sure, perhaps for our next dinner party as roast chicken is an easy way to look like you slaved away all day in the kitchen and totally didn't (that is true Martha style).

 Pepper steak is on almost all restaurant menus and is super tasty.
The cut of steak they use is quite lean and this dish was served with steamed green beans and those mystery balls. The sauce was incredible, so smooth and creamy with a peppery kick to finish. I have zero idea how they made this sauce, but will do some investigation into pepper sauces and see how we can make it Dukan friendly, or at least lower fat (because I am sure there is loads of cream in there).

Thank you, France for your amazing food!

If Martha were to rank food in Paris and Normandy, the STEWART SCORE would be as follows:

Appearance: 2 (The French take such pride in the appearance of their food)
Taste: 2 (Eating well is not hard to do in this country where they take food very seriously)
Ease: 1 (All their rich sauces and precise presentations are not easy, but totally appreciated!)

New Dukan Recipe Books

My husband and I were just in France for a week. The home of the Dukan diet.
As hard as I tried to stick to my consolidation phase, the allure of the baguette, the perfect croissant and the cheese won me over. Oh the cheese...

But - to renew my Dukan diet spirit, I found new Dukan recipe books they only have in French. I bought the 'La Patisserie Dukan', but there was also the 'Les Recettes Dukan' and the illustrated version of his original book.

 Yes, I am English, but, as a Canadian I do have my fundamental French language skills that remarkably sprang back to life while in France.

So - not only will trying to recreate these recipes be fun, it will be fun to practice my French whilst doing it (Let me tell you, Martha will be proud of that!).