Cooking the Dukan Way

My refrigerator, which used to hold a variety of foods and condiments has been completely overhauled! It now looks like it belongs to a butcher because it's FULL of meat! Since my husband and I are now in the cruise phase of the Dukan Diet, we are limited to meat, eggs and non-fat dairy, adding vegetables only every other day.


As a treat to myself, I neglected the turquoise color scheme in our kitchen and treated myself to a pink silicone spatula! These spatulas are the best for making scrambled eggs, a trick my big sister taught me years ago!

On the first day of my cruise phase, I took advantage of the veggies part of the diet and made this delicious chilli! I used beef stock (made from an Oxo cube), tomato paste and ground beef. Instead of kidney beans which aren't allowed because of their starch content, I used soya beans. To add flavor and also to trick myself into eating veggies I don't like, I used diced celery, carrots and onion. Other ingredients included garlic, salt, pepper, chilli flakes and cayenne pepper. It was sooooo good!!! Also I think the green soya beans make it look more appealing with the color! I'm thinking of using this recipe for Christmas time as well since it's red and green!

Most of the time on pure protein days our meals include a variety of meats. It just feels weird when you only have one thing on your plate. For this particular meal we had salmon en papillote (basically salmon baked in tin foil pouches with lemon juice, garlic and herbs), roasted chicken and scrambled eggs. I try to stretch my eggs as much as possible because they have a different texture to meat so can often satisfy the textural craving of carbs or veggies. I usually scramble my eggs with 1 yolk and 2 or 3 whites. I do this because the Dukan Diet only allows 2 yolks per day, but the whites which are rich in protein, are allowed in unlimited quantities.

As far as meat and fish goes, I take advantage of what's available to flavor and moisten the meat including mustard, lemon, lime and bouillon cubes. I also use a wide selection of herbs and spices to keep the flavors interesting! Water can be very useful when cooking as can a dry rub of vegetable oil on a pan.

My breakfast most days is scrambled eggs done the same way with reduced fat bacon medallions and coffee. For those of you familiar with the diet or doing it yourself, I don't have my oat bran until the evening because I find it soothes my craving for sweets and snacks at night when I'm watching tv. I usually prepare it as a porridge with warm skim milk, aspartame and ground cinnamon. It's like Christmas in a bowl!