New recipe added: Bone broth chicken soup

Here is the bone broth with poultry. This was my first trial of making bone broth from chicken.

Since chicken is not very easy to cut, I put the whole organic and free-range chicken into a big pot and cook a little. Then I cut the chicken and take out the bones and skin, added 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and cooked them for 5 hours in very low heat in a pot full of water.

Quick notes here:

Continue reading New recipe added: Bone broth chicken soup

health project update and new goal added: Lazy recipes goes for becoming a project!

I recently wrote that my health is getting better and I am so happy and proud of myself for sticking to my healthy diet. I eat a lot of meat (all kinds), bone broth and black cumin oil which are high in calories and still lose weight as I cut the carbs. Of course I eat chocolate and little treats like ginger desert, pumpkin desert and tiny cupcakes made w/ gluten-free flour.

All of my meals are home-made (by me) and my original recipes. In other words, I made them up 🙂 I call them lazy recipes as I cannot spend time on cooking and want the ingredients become food as effortless as possible.

So, I came up with a new goal: Why don’t I create a lazy healthy recipe set to share with you? I’ve already created a category about it. I tried two other meals in the past two days and will share them too.

At the end of the year, I want to came up with the top 5’s in the areas of:

1. Breakfast ideas

2. Red meat (Lamb/Beef) + veggies + sauces

3. Poultry meat + veggies + sauces

4. Bone broth soups

5. Green salad & veggie sauces

6. Snacks + snack sauces

7. Desserts + desert sauces

8. Smoothies w/ kefir or yoghurt

I love making the combination to ease the cook’s mind. I will try them through time and select the top 5.

As I have a leaky gut and IBS, candida problem and gluten allergy I think my choices will apply to many people with or without these problems.

Therefore, get ready!

Introducing my super-healthy leaky-gut diet (plus: I lost 10lbs in a week with it!)

Yay! I’ve lost 10lbs in a week with my super healthy diet!

This diet was not supposed to help losing weight but it did work on that area too!

This is a healthy diet mostly for people who have:

  •  Liver and bowel problems such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Leaky Gut Syndrome etc.
  •  Auto-immune diseases like celiac or crohn, bowel related psychological disorders such as depression, migraines etc
  •  Excessive Candida Albicans in digestive system.
  •  Under-working immune system (mine was almost dead 🙂
  •  High blood sugar and constant sugar cravings 

I had all of the above 🙂 Luckily I developed The Alex – Diet to cope. As it worked quite well for me in the very first week, I will share it with you as a New Year present 🙂

Plus gain: My goal was to lose 30lbs by the end of January 2015. First part of the goal is achieved: To lose 10lbs before 2015 🙂

Beware that I am not a nutrician but a psychologist. I made this diet up by hours of research about leaky-gut diets, GAPS diets etc from academic studies to nutritionists (who sell their ultimate diet plans 0_o) and personal experience blogs. They are too restrictive for me in many ways and there are too many recipes to follow. That is, you feel coerced to buy the damn cookbook. I said no to that crap and start working on my own diet which I will share with everyone for free 🙂

During this diet, I also took L-Glutamine, Vitamin C, Milk thistle, Beta Carotene and probiotic dietary supplements.

***

I believe, a diet for health should not contain many recipes, but the principles to apply to your tastes.

So, I developed 10 principles to follow:

1. Drink water as water (0.5 gallons a day). Not as tea, coffee etc. Just water.

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2. Eat nothing with a “light/diet/low fat” written on it. 

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3. Every morning when you get up, drink 1 big glass of water. You can add 1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice, carbonate or apple cider vinegar in it. This is to detox your liver. After that, drink 1 tablespoon of black cumin oil and 1 tablespoon of propolis. Drink another glass of water. These are to boost your immune system.

***

4. Wait for 2 hours till breakfast. You can drink water. No coffee or black tea allowed. Give your digestive system and liver a nice detox time every day. Oil and propolis have lots of calories and you won’t be craving I promise.

***

5. For breakfast

This is when you start fighting with Candida in your system. You send the good guys (probiotics) to fight them.

a)  Eat 1 bowl of probiotic yoghurt. You can add extra probiotic supplements in it.

b) Drink 200ml kefir.

***

6. After breakfast:

a) if you want, you can have 1 cup of very smooth blend coffee or tea. 1 cup, no more…

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b) If you crave, wash your mouth with some Apple Cider Vinegar and you will feel better. If you get very hungry, you can eat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil every day. You can use this option if you have night cravings. No carbs, eat oil It will make you feel full.

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7. Never cook the oil. You can put the oil to your meal when you are on the table. I do not use oil for cooking, I drink it. Better for the bowel.

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8. Lunch & Dinner: You can eat the same things in lunch and dinner as long as they are healthy 🙂 You can be creative but keep it simple. No sauces, no extra fat and no breads.

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a) SOUPS

I mostly eat my meals as soups with home made bone broth.

I wrote about bone broth earlier. Click to see how to do it at home. Avoid buying meat/chicken stock ready. It will cause harm to you rather than good.

Bone broth is necessary to mend your leaky gut and fight auto-immune diseases.

Home made soup with bone broth
Home made soup with bone broth by Alex

Links to recipes of home-made bone broth and the veggie soup in the picture above

You can be creative and use the soup recipe to make your favorite soups with different ingredients. Here is an example with the same cooking tactic. Same recipe, diffrerent soup. Easy, isn’t it?

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Note: No extra oil in the soup as it has fat in itself. Avoid too much salt. Use turmeric and rosemary for taste and aroma. Also, no flour is used. No exceptions on that. 

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b) MEALS

You can use any meat/poultry or fish + cooked/steamed veggies in your meals. I recommend cooking veggies with steam. So, you should buy yourself a steamer 🙂 You will use it almost every day… If you do not have a steamer, boil them in water in low heat. But they will lose some nutrients to water while boiling. So drink that boiling water too.

I recommend free range especially for poultry. Organic will be a plus.

You can eat boiled eggs too as a meal. 2 boiled eggs + yoghurt as dressing + veggies can be a nice dinner plate.

Yesterday I treated myself a really nice dinner. I wrote the names of the veggies I used. OMG salmon is sooo tasty I did not even put salt in it! I steamed vegetables first and then the salmon in steamer. It was ready in 30 minutes in total. (I did not steam the soy sprouts though, I ate them raw 🙂

Salmon is very oily and you should not use any extra oil.

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Another option:

Bring it all together and make a salmon-veggie soup with the same ingredients.

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9. Manage your guilty pleasures.

a) If you want to eat desert, eat dark chocolate, eat 1 piece (up to 20gr) per day at the most. The next day you can eat again. So you are not giving up for life. You don’t have to eat the whole bar when you open it. 

xxx

b) Tiny guilt treats: If you want to eat cake, cook it with gluten-free flour and eat very very little.

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Small-size dark chocolate cupcake with 1 cooked cherry on top is my favorite (no cream of course)

Also, you can make tiny treats for yourself such as pumpkin desert or ginger desert. Boil them like you are making a marmelade. Do not overcook but boil them slowly with little sugar.

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Another example with yoghurt sauce, not so guilty 🙂

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c) No-guilt treats: Eat all you can eat treats. Beware, until your stomach stops creating gas, you should avoid fresh veggies. I started to eat them on the 6th day.

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Try not to take sugar if you have excessive Candida growth. They love sugar. Let’s starve them 🙂

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10. What not to eat and NO EXCUSES!

– Cheese, milk, dairy products except for yoghurt and kefir.

– Wheat, wheat products, rice, corn, starch and starchy veggies like potatoes.

– Fruits as they are very high on fructose sugar. Candida loves fructose.

– Deserts including milk such as pudding etc.

– Raw veggies or salads until your stomach does not produce gas.

– All fastfood or junk food like chips etc.

– Any kind of smoked meat and fish.

– Alcoholic drinks, fruit juice (fresh or not), coke, energy drink etc.

***

There it comes: The Principle Zero. Start with a decision.

Today is a good day as it is time to make New Year Resolutions. When you decide to live healthy, then clean up your freezer, kitchen, cellar etc. If they stay, you eat them. As the principle zero, get rid of them first. Tomorrow, go buy/order fresh veggies, meat and bones. Start cooking. It is very easy.  Believe me, because I am very lazy 🙂

If a very depressed woman could do it, (I mean avoiding sugar and comfort food was not easy in the first days) anyone can.

Have a very healthy year and thanks for following

Alex

Update update, I have a deadline :)

Good news folks!

I feel better with my bone broth soup which I daily prepare from zero to eat it fresh.

For the last three days I am having:

  1. Bone broth veggie soup (see lazy recipes section under Health Category) 2 big bows 🙂
  2. Propolis (1 spoonfull)
  3. Probiotic yoghurt mixed with normal yoghurt (200 ml)
  4. Kefir (200 ml)
  5. Riched Probiotic Supplement including (I mix it with yoghurt for breakfast)
    • Lactobacillus acidophilus
    • Lactobacillus rhamnosus
    • Bifidobacterium bifidum
    • Bifidobacterium longum
  6. No gluten, no wheat or wheat products, no milk, no cheese, no coffee/tea, no coke, no sugar, no starchy food, none of them! It is very hard not to drink my morning coffee and eat my bitter chocolate but i guess i will get used to that.

And I feel better. Of course there is gas and stuff weird going on in my stomach like it talks to me mumbling and growling all the time but I guess I got used to it.

Plus I will buy fresh Nigella Seeds (Black Cumin) and L-Glutamine supplement today and take them to boost my immune system.

I use medication that doctor gave me for Candida. That will go on for a week.

So in 10 days I want to get better. First goal 🙂 Get rid of this thing, get healthy and keep it that way for a year 🙂

On 5th of January I have my PhD Thesis defence meeting and I want to be super energetic that day. Although, mmm, I haven’t done much about the thesis lately. I guess I should work on that in the following days.

So 10 days folks 🙂 Wish me luck to fight with my fucking Leaky Gut Syndrome, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Systemic Candida in my bowels and I hope I will give you good news.

Thank you for supporting me 🙂

Alex

How to make bone broth at home in 3 easy steps + Lazy Soup Recipe

STEP 1. Pick a meat type and buy fresh bones 

Lamb has the best taste, cow has more bone marrow. I do not prefer poultry or pork, but these will do too.

It is better be organic and this is very important “free range” animals especially for poultry in both ethical and health terms.

Pros: Very easy to find, cheap

Cons: It is the bones of an animal. It doesn’t look like cutted meat. It is the bone and you have to see it.

STEP 2. Boil them in very low heat for 8-12 hrs

Put lots of water in the pot and put 2-5 tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar in it to get the best result. Put the bones and open up the heater. Boil it first with moderate heat and take the brownish foam out. We do not eat that. Then put the heater to the minimum, cover the pot and wait for 8-12 hrs. Check 2-3 times about the water level. Usually you do not have to add water in it. If you have to, add previously heated/boiled water.

Yes, it takes so long. Do not forget: The heat should be at the minimum. This is not a meal so cooking it with high heat in short time will not get you what you want. So simply, wait 🙂

STEP 3. Use it immediately or cool it down and put it in the fridge 

Using it immediately is nice but you will eat all the fat in it too. However, if you cool it and wait it in the freezer like 4-5 hrs, the fat will freeze on the top.

It will look like this:

bonebroth - Copy

See the bones and the white fat on them. Tap on the fat with a spoon and it will crack. Take the fat out and you will see the bone broth jelly inside.

It should look like this:

bonebroth2 - Copy

I usually do not use the fat. No need to gain more weight. The jelly is fatless and full of aminoacids. 

When you take the fat out, heat the pot again and take the bones out. You can also take the bone marrows and put them into the jelly or you can eat them directly. Very very healthy and necessary if you have Leaky Gut Syndrome like me.

Now you have your Bone Broth and you can put precooked or steamed peas, chickpeas, beans, veggies, meat, onions, garlic in it to make a nice soup or you can drink it directly when it is warm.

Do not add additional water. That will lower the taste.

Tip: I steam the veggies and other stuff before putting into the broth because broth is already cooked. No need to overcook it and kill the health in it.

My lazy soup recipe with bone broth

1. Frozen presteamed veggies (broccoli, lettuce, baby carrots etc),

2. Precooked frozen meat products or meatballs (no salami, no sausages, no smoked meat)

3. Other ingredients like precooked beans, chickpeas or peas (No wheat or wheat products, no corn and no starch should be added if you have Leaky Gut Syndrome.)

4. Onions (very small cut, you can use frozen too)

5. Garlic (large cut and freshly cut)

6. For extra taste: turmeric, rosemary etc. (No hot pepper or no extra sauce if you have Leaky Gut Syndrome) Turmeric is extra good for Leaky Gut.

7. Bone broth from 1kg of bones (home cooked, fat removed)

This is how my soup looks like:

Home made soup with bone broth
Home made soup with bone broth

Add them all to your bone broth, cook for 10 minutes with low heat to mix the tastes together and your soup is ready to go.

No extra salt needed as it is too tasty and fresh, Good for health. Buon apetite 🙂

Alex,

Cleaning is done, now it is time to cook and self-rejuvenation

Thank you all for following and supporting me 🙂

This really boosted me yesterday and I cleaned my messy house.

Now it is time to clean me 🙂

I cooked a super-healty soup with homemade bone broth. That is to treat my freaky leaky gut.

Home made soup with bone broth
Home made soup with bone broth

I put some onions, meatballs, vegetables (broccoli, carrot etc), chickpeas; added turmeric, rosemary for flavor. At the end, I added freshly cut garlic.

OMG it tastes soooo goood 🙂

soup
Ingredients: Home made bone broth (Lamb) Meatballs Vegetables Chickpeas Onions, garlic Turmeric, rosemary