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!).