Ricotta Lemon Pancakes

I am in love with these. I think the combination of ricotta and lemon is great, and have loved the finished product each time I have mixed the two. I found the original recipe here, and have tweaked it slightly to make it Dukan approved. Depending on your topping choices you could eat these on every phase. I had some fruit salsa in the fridge and that was great, but cream cheese would also be good. Get creative.



Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• ½ cup oat bran flour (blended oat bran)
• ½ cup milk (add slowly)
• 3 TBSP sweetener of your choice
• ½ cup ricotta cheese
• Juice of 1 lemon (Meyer lemons will be slightly sweeter)
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

 

 

Procedure:

 

1. Mix all wet ingredients, except the milk, and blend until well mixed and fluffy. 
2. Add the oat bran flour, mix until well incorporated.
3. Slowly add the milk until the batter reaches a good consistency for pancakes. 
1. Mine was too thin and made very thin pancakes, which were still very tasty.
4. Preheat your skillet and spray with a light mist of cooking spray.
5. Cook as you would a pancake
1. The original recipe suggest making smaller pancakes, but I found this took too long and opted half way through to make normal sized pancakes.

Roughly 1/3 of the pancakes made would equal the amount of oat bran you should consume each day. If you take that into consideration you can use this as a method of eating your oat bran. I made about 1 dozen larger pancakes (5 inch), the original recipe suggests it makes 2 dozen of the smaller (2 1/2 to 3 inch) pancakes.

Rhubarb Tart

I recently had some family members start Dukan and wanted to come up with a dessert that they could enjoy while on phase 2. While reviewing the book I noticed that rhubarb counts as a vegetable, and my mind started to work. I came up with this dessert that uses items that are perfect for phase 2 and beyond.

Please bear in mind that rhubarb is not a sweet item on its own, so this is not a sweet dessert, but it was tasty. It was incredibly hard to get a decent picture. I think they taste a lot better than the picture makes them out to.

Ingredients:
Crust-

• 2 1/2 Cups oat bran flour
• 1 TBSP Truvia, or desired sweetener
• 1 cup cream cheese
• 1/2 cup ice water
• 1/8 tsp butter flavoring

Cream Filling-

• 16 ounces cream cheese
• 1 TBSP vanilla
• 1/8 tsp almond extract
• 3 TBSP Truvia, or desired sweetener

Rhubarb Filling-

• 6 cups chopped rhubarb (I used frozen)
• 2 cups sweetener of choice (Stevia makes it more bitter, use something else)
• 1/4 cup corn starch

Procedure:

1. Gather your muffin tins and papers, preheat oven to 350F
2. Mix all ingredients for the cream filling and set aside in the fridge
3. Mix all ingredients for the crust in a food processor, blending until well mixed.
4. Mix all ingredients for rhubarb filling and set aside.
5. Place papers in each spot of your muffin pan
6. Fill the bottom of each cup with a small amount of the crust, pressing it down firmly so it creates a firm bottom layer.
7. Spoon equal amounts of the cream filling on top of each crust, cover with the rhubarb filling.
8. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes or until the fillings are bubbly.
9. Allow to cool and remove from the pan.
10. Enjoy hot or cold.
11. Store in the fridge.

Fruit Dip

This is a light fruit dip that can be adapted to just about any taste. It would also be good as a snack all on its own.

Ingredients:
1 10oz  tub light whipped topping
2 6oz containers flavored yogurt (I used lemon, many flavors would be good)

Procedure:
Thaw whipped topping if needed. Combine all ingredients, stirring until they are combined well and smooth.

Mueller Family Mouse

First, please let me apologize for the lack of posts this week. It has been a busy week helping family and we have been eating out A LOT. Luckily I have managed to stay on track.

I guess you could count this as a guest post since this isn't my recipe. This was provided by a colleague, and is loved and eaten quite a bit by his family. They like to freeze it and use it as an ice cream substitute. If you are wanting something chocolate but not something as thick as my fudge recipe you may want to give this a try.

Ingredients:
1 small tub fat free whipped topping
8 oz cream cheese
2 TBSP fat free milk
2 TBSP cocoa powder (or more to taste)
sweetener to taste (6 packages of Truvia was suggested)

Procedure:
Mix until well blended, enjoy!

Vanilla Cake Doughnuts

I found this recipe here and thought it would be worth a try. After Dukanizing it I will admit that they are pretty good. Not the same as a real doughnut, but a tasty snack.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup oat bran flour 
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup sweetener of your choice
• 1/4 teaspoon cardamom
• 2 eggs 
• 2 tablespoons fruit puree (I used pears)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For a different flavor, try adding a dash of nutmeg, allspice, cloves and cinnamon
Procedure:

•  Preheat oven to 325F
• Combine all of the wet ingredients plus the sweetener, mix, and set aside. Combine the flour, soda, and powder. 
• Carefully add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, stir until well mixed but not too long. 
• Fill a doughnut pan, or doughnut maker to level determined appropriate by the manufacturer, usually about 2/3 full. 
• The batter I ended up with is more liquid than that shown on the original recipe, and it worked out great. Feel free to alter the thickness of your batter to meet your needs, but it can change the density of the end product.
• For the pan, which is what I used, bake for 12-14 minutes. If you have a doughnut maker you will have to experiment a bit to find what works for you.

 I topped some with cinnamon Truvia (think cinnamon sugar), others I put a bit of my chai cream cheese and some cinnamon Truvia. Both were good, but I prefer the cream cheese topping.

This makes approximately 8 doughnuts when using a pan.

Amazing Lemon Ricotta Cookies

The original recipe can be found here. Here is my Dukanized version. I thought these tasted amazing on their own, but would be so tasty with some sort of cream cheese frosting. I made the first batch with Stevia, and plan to make the next batch with Truvia to improve the flavor. They are such a refreshing treat though!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup pureed fruit (I used pears, applesauce would be great too).
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil
• 1 cup sweetener
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• 1/4 tsp butter flavoring
• 1 lemon - zest & juice (add both to batter)
• 3/4 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
• 2 cups oat bran flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt (only 1/8 tsp of regular salt)

Procedure:

• Preheat oven to 350F
• Cream the wet ingredients together, blend well.
• Mix the dry ingredients and the lemon zest together. Add them to the wet ingredients.
• Mix until incorporated, but do not over-mix.
• You can either place the dough in the fridge until it is firm enough to roll out and cut with cookie cutters, or you can scoop it now. It depends on how fancy you want your cookies to look.
• Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden around the edges.

Marcia's Marshmallow Creme

I have been avoiding the numerous recipes that include Cool Whip, mostly because the chemicals that make up Cool Whip are unappealing to me. Recently, however, I discovered an alternative, thanks Harmon's. Now I can give these recipes a try. Yeah!

This recipe tastes very similar to the marshmallow goop you can get in a jar. It would be tasty on so many things. I froze mine and enjoyed it as an ice cream replacement. The possibilities are endless.




Ingredients:
8 oz cream cheese
8 oz cool whip (I used a small container which was 10 oz)
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sweetener of your choice


Procedure:
Mix all ingredients until well incorporated.

Chai Cream Cheese

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup chai (Indian Tea), brewed strong
• 1 TBSP sweetener
• 1/2 tsp vanilla, powder or liquid
• 8 oz cream cheese

Blend and enjoy!

Goes great on the oatmeal cookies.

Oatmeal Cookies

I have finally, somewhat, achieved a cookie that eats like a cookie!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup applesauce, unsweetened
1 TBSP vegetable oil
1 cup sweetener of choice
1 cup brown sweetener of choice
3 eggs
3 TBSP water
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups wheat flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups oat bran
3/4 tsp allspice
3/4 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375F

Combine all dry ingredients, set aside. Combine all wet ingredients and mix until well blended. Slowly combine the wet and dry ingredients. Mix until combined well.
Scoop onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Makes approximately 3 dozen.

From my calculations 2 of these cookies count as one serving of oat bran per day (OK, just a bit more than the 3 TBSP in later phases). Each cookie is about 1.67 TBSP of oat bran. These taste great with tea in the morning, and would be great with cream cheese.

Yogurt Cake

I have recently been reading Bringing up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman. In this book she mentions, and provides a recipe for, a recipe that a number of French families teach to their children to get them started in baking. I was intrigued by the recipe, but also to see if I could Dukanize it and come up with something decent. Here is what I tried, and I think it turned out great. My suggestions for next time are in parenthesis, use whichever you want. The neat thing about this cake is that you use the yogurt container to measure the other ingredients which makes it very child friendly.



Ingredients:

• 2 6oz yogurts - plain Greek yogurt is what I used, but flavored could be good as well
• 4 eggs (3 whole eggs and 3 egg whites may help it turn out fluffier)
• 1 container Stevia, other sweeteners may require more or less (add 2 containers for a sweeter cake)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 TBSP vegetable oil - don't freak out, the original recipe called for a container of it
• 4 containers flour - we blended up oat bran to make oat flour and used that, which may explain the extra density of the cake
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup skim milk (1 1/2 cups milk next time)

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Mix all wet ingredients
3. Mix all dry ingredients
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stir until well incorporated
5. Grease pan with a light coat of PAM
6. Move cake batter into the pan and spread evenly throughout
7. Bake for 35 minutes, check with a toothpick to ensure it is done.

Frosting:
I kept it really simple and altered the recipe for my Lemon Cream Cheese. I doubled the recipe, used orange extract instead, and added 2 TBSP of milk to make it creamy and easy to spread.

Mint Creme Oreo

I LOVE Mint Creme Oreos, and have a very hard time when my husband snacks on them. I created this to help myself through the temptations. The fudge portion is very good on its own as well. This is a very rich dessert without all of the guilt.

Ingredients:

Fudge-

8 oz Cream Cheese - Fat Free or Neufchatel

15 oz Ricotta Cheese - Low Fat

6 TBSP Stevia, or to taste

1/2 Cup Dark Cocoa Powder

Mint Creme-

8 oz Cream Cheese - Fat Free or Neufchatel

1 tsp Peppermint Extract

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

5 TBSP Stevia, or to taste

Green food coloring if desired

Instructions are straight forward. Combine all of the fudge ingredients in a bowl, and all the mint ingredients in a separate bowl. I used a food scoop to place one layer of fudge, a layer of mint, and a final layer of fudge in a 4 oz jar. The jars can be purchased here, and the lids here.

Lemon Cream Cheese

I was craving something with a citrus kick, but still a bit sweet. I have done the same thing with an orange flavoring as well. This is what I came up with. Enjoy!

Lemon Cream Cheese
8 oz Cream Cheese - Fat Free or Neufchatel (1/3 less fat cream cheese)
1/4 tsp Vanilla Extract
1/2 tsp Lemon Flavoring (I use Simply Organic)
Sweetener to taste (I used ~ 2 TBSP of Stevia)
Food Coloring (I didn't add this, but it could be fun)