Healthy guts: splenda and sauerkraut

I had been thinking about gut health for the last few days. Part of it is because the muscle building program I’m following, the Hollywood Physique. In this program, you’re suppose to have a «cleanse» before the actual exercise and eating program begins, in an attempt to aid (or better said, to fix) an impaired digestion and absorb better the different nutrients your body so desperately needs.

And of course, we all have heard about lactobacillus. You know, that healthy bacteria living in your guts, helping with digestion, nutrients’ absorption and killing evil bacteria. And, supposedly, it also helps you losing weight! I remember looooong ago seeing in the Discovery Channel how this bambi-looking  thingy (some sort of deer, I guess) actually ate his momma’s POO in order to get some of that bacteria into its system. Yeah, nasty stuff. Anyway, I’m not licking anybody’s poo to get some lactobacillus into MY system. Trust me, I got quite a handful of kinky fetishes, but that is NOT one of them!!!!!!!!!!

You can also buy yogurt  and other dairy products, but from what I read, most of the good bacteria is already dead by the time you actually eat it. There are some supplements on lactobacillus, but they’re more expensive than a sample of the Pope’s crap (yeah, Holy crap!) and the box only has 10 pills. So, for a month’s worth, I have to spend THREE LITTLE FORTUNES to get the pesky eff’ers in me. Not. Gonna. Happen.

OH! I I recently discovered Splenda kills the good bacteria in your guts. I was always afraid on googling «Splenda side effects» because I love the stuff. But I stumbled on the info and…. crap. So, since I’m an Splenda whore (probably getting the max amount permited every day!) I probably don’t have many lactobacillus in my guts right now. I mean, 5-6 cups of «something» a day with 5 tablets/25 drops of Splenda on EACH cup?

I began to worry when @YumYucky called it «Splenda-shit» in a tweet. Like I said, I didn’t want to actually google it and learn about the bad side of it. But I guessed that cutting down in the stuff was not a bad idea. I started to drink my teas Splenda-less. It took a while, but it is doable. The coffee was a different animal. I started to have it black just a few days ago, and amazingly I already adapted! The first cup was…ugh. Instant coffee. No sweetener. I had to tweet «Instant coffee with no splenda tastes like jockstrap water LOL». Man, it was like a tsunami of gay bots replying to me, I barely made it alive!!! (That’s the second word I banned from tweets, unless you want a bot tsunami. The first word to never tweet? IPad, duh)

Aaaaaaaaand that’s a rap on this post’s introduction. (Really, Rein, all that was just the intro? Yes, it was). I searched for a cheap way to get lactobacillus into my digestive system, and keep it paleo/primal friendly. Enter – I bet you guessed it from the title- sauerkraut! I found this sauerkraut recipe on one of my favorite paleo recipes sites, Paleodietlifestyle.com. And get more confident after watching this video on tha tube:

A few hours ago, I did the whole drill. Shredded half a cabbage, and set something like that video shows. Smaller tho, since I’m the only one who’s going to eat it, probably. Tune in next week, I’ll post the results and pics of what I did!

Paleo / Primal Lasagna

New recipe! I got to say, I stole the «egg noodles» idea from another site 😛 I learn it from Steve, he has an amazing blog with a lot of mind-blowing primal recipes. Go check him out at Primalocity!

I had the ingredients and the time to make everything from scratch, but feel free to substitute anything I used. Like canned tomatoes and the like.

Tomato Sauce

– 7 tomatoes, peeled and diced

– Spices (I used black pepper, dried basil, 1 small bay leaf, garlic powder, fresh oregano and hot pepper flakes).

– Salt and a bit of Stevia (or raw honey)

I just put everything to simmer in a small pot for like 40 minutes. Don’t make the same mistake I did and DO NOT cover with a lid!! This will help reduction and the sauce will came out a lot more thick than mine.

After 40 minutes the sauce will get a deeper red color. Take away the bay leaf and fresh oregano, and mash it with a potato masher for a chunky sauce, or put it in a food processor.

Meat & Mushrooms

– 1.5 pounds of ground beef

– 1 package mushrooms, chopped

It’s a no brainer. Heat your favorite pan and add some lard!

Add the meat and the mushrooms….

And cook until everything is… well, cooked. Salt, pepper and garlic powder it.

Reserve.

Veggies & Cream

– 1 small zuchinni, shredded

– 1 huge bag os spinach, chopped

– 4 Tbsp heavy cream

Your pan should have some juice from the meat you just cooked. Add a little bit more lard to it and then the zuchinni.

Then add the spinach. As you can see, I had a little problem in this step…

Don’t even try to stir! Just leave the mess alone to steam itself. It will go down after a few minutes.

Then add the cream, cook a little more and reserve.

The egg «noodles»

Now, for the real paleo heart of the recipe. How in Earth do you make lasagna without lasagna noodles???

– 6 eggs

– 6 Tbsp tap water

Whisk eggs and water together.

Heat the pan (again) with a little bit of fat. You only need to add fat once. Add about 3/4 cup of the batter. Since we added water, the «pancake» will be very very thin, just like we want!

Then, cut a cross with a spatula. You should end up with 4 triangles. Flip them.

After a few more seconds, take them out. Oh, you don’t need to flip them right. You can make a mess and end up with a bunch of small pieces of cooked eggs and it will be fine 😉  It’s fool-proof! Repeat with the rest of the batter. You’ll have something like this:

The Lasagna

Finally! Get some pyrex oven dish. Pour a little of the tomato sauce.

Then the «egg noodles». Now you can see why it doesn’t matter if you don’t get the triangles right. Just cut the pieces until you fill the area.

Then add a layer of meat and mushrooms…

Then more sauce…

Spinach & cream layer, and some shredded cheese…

Rinse and repeat as needed.

I bake it for about 50 minutes at 350ºF (180ºC). If you take my advice and cook the tomato sauce without the lid on, I’m guessing 40 minutes.

Enjoy!

Primal Stuffed Chicken Breasts (with broccoli)

I’m an ass. I purposedly cooked this dish to post it here, and took pics of the whole process. But I forgot to take a pic of the finished dish! *sight* Anyways, the first time I did this was an instant hit. The family didn’t even protested at the lack of potatoes or rice. It’s a winner! You’ll be making the meat and the side dish at the same time too, so there less mess to clean up afterwards!

Now, I understand that not all people reading this blog follows the Paleo/Primal lifestyle. But I do encourage «normal» folks to try this dishes once in a while. I’m not trying to convert anybody here,  but this is a very delicious savory meal to try. Not EVERY meal has to have starch, ya’know? Also, if you find the amount of monosaturated fat in the recipe threatening, please do uso EVOO or some «light» version of the ingredients I used. Heck, change whatever you want from the recipe =)

OK, so, how do you begin this things again? Oh right, the ingredients list (serves three hungry paleotards people):

– 3 chicken breasts (or one and a half? I mean, one whole chicken has 2 «half» breast, right? 3 of those).

– 1 cup of finely diced red bellpepper

– 3/4  cup creamcheese

– Bacon, a lot of it

– 2 Tbsp lard

– 1 whole big broccoli. I used some cauliflower as well because the broccoli I had was kind of small.

– Spices! I used garlic powder, fresh black pepper, cumin and salt.

The actual procedure (it takes about 1:30 hours, cooking included):

We’ll need those chicken breasts flat. We will want to roll them up as you would roll a carpet before storage it (or something like that). So take a big piece of plastic film, your favorite kitchen hammer (I bet they have another name but I don’t know it) and pound away.

The idea here isn’t making the breast super thin; it’s more about making it the same thickness all around. The plastic film protects the meat; otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of grounded chicken breast. You can reuse the same film for all the breasts.

Place the creamcheese in a microwave safe dish and nuke a minute or so, until tender. Add the bellpepper.

And mix.

Spread the stuffing into the chicken breast…

Roll them up the best you can (it doesn’t have to be perfect, will be putting more stuff on top anyway), and place them in a oven rack (I was using a toaster oven)

Then put the sliced bacon on top…

And place in the oven at medium heat.

Place the «cookie sheet» underneath it. The creamcheese will ooze. You’ll want to catch it on something.

Cut and wash your broccoli in big chunks (bigger than bite sizes). Pat dry.

In a mixing bowl, add 2 Tbsp of lard.

Add any spices you like, and mix.

Coat your veggies in the lard mixture..

And if you feel like it, get a real mess by mixing it with your hands!

And after the chicken has been roasting for 20 minutes, add the veggies in the cookie sheet. Mix well with any droppings from the chicken, and roast everything for another 40 minutes.

After that, just eat!

Paleo / Primal Burgers and French Fries

Here is one thing you need to know about me: I LOVE to cook. And since I went Paleo / Primal, that fact hasn’t changed at all.  I was talking to a Colombian co-worker and learned about those funny-looking green bananas I keep seeing at the supermarket. One thing lead to another and… my first Paleo recipe!!!

This french fries have exactly the same taste and look than potato based french fries. If you don’t tell anyone that this is a Paleo dish, they will never know that they’re not eating potatoes! But don’t take my word for it. Try them once, and thanks me for a lifetime later 😉

Makes 2 servings.

For the burgers:

400 grams (14 oz) ground beef (you could make a mix of ground meats too)

1 small carrot, shredded

1 egg

salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried parsley, to taste

4 dashes of Tabasco sauce

4 dashes of Winchester sauce

For the french fries:

3 green plantains (the secret ingredient!)

And ½ an avocado as a side dish

Preparation.

1.- Whisk the egg in a bowl. Add the carrot, the ground meat, sauces and spices. Mix well with your hands. The mix will have a lot of moisture.

2.- Heat up a cast iron skillet, with oil. Take half the mix in your hands, form a patty, and put it in the skillet. Repeat with the other half. After 5 minutes, cook the other side for 3 minutes. Reserve.

3.- Peel the green plantains with a knife, and cut it into three cylinders. Then cut each cylinder in quarters, and each quarter in half. This is a very important step; thicker pieces will be a little more “chewy” than regular french fries.

4.- Heat up a deep-frier at 340 °F. Deep-fry the plantains for 3 minutes (it only takes 3 minutes!).

5.- Drain the fries, then put on absorbent paper. Salt them freely.

6.- Slice half an avocado, salt it in your plate.

7.- Serve, and enjoy!

The 30 years old virgin

Ok, I have a confession to make. This is so embarrasing for me, but I made the promise to be totally honest in this blog so… here it goes. I am… an eggplant virgin. Yep, never had that stuff. I know, I’m almost 30 years old and never had any. I even brought one to my place once, but I got so nervous about it that didn’t make anything with it. I had to throw it out :_(

All I know about the eggplant is from the cooking TV shows. I know it’s suppose to be somewhat like a zuchinni and that it absorves oil like a mad cow if you sautee it.

Why this confession? Because I desperatly need to cook something! It’s impossible for me to cook in the week days, and last weekend I was on this trip so it’s been 14 days without cooking. I’m getting the shakes already. I want to cook!

So, yesterday I was told about this recipe on Facebook. It caught my attention because it’s roasted (so no problem with the oil here), had chickpeas, feta cheese and other yum stuff. And only 200 calories per serving. It looked so yummy and light and vegeterian that I decided I’m gonna cook myself a huge steak on saturday night and having the eggplant recipe as a side dish =P

(Warning: clicking on the recipe link might provide hours and hours of food porn and healthy cooking).

The other thing I’m gonna try is WW homemade pasta! That’s the plan for sunday. I’m gonna make it from scratch, and shape it as spaghetti and lasagna. And dry it, of course! Really, WW pasta is so expensive here. I think this might be my only option to actually eat the stuff. I have a pasta machine collecting dust somewhere in my kitchen after all. I’ll be trying this recipe.

And since not everything must follow a recipe, I’m also going to make homemade burgers. I don’t know what I’ll add to those. Just ground beef, textured soy protein, soylent green, herbs, oats, eggs, etc. Nice to share my cooking plans with ya.

And just a quick note: I did snap several pics of myself trying to recreate Steve Carrel facial expresion. They were so embarrasing that I decided not to post them LOL

Muffins para el desayuno

Hace unos meses descubrí el sitio de SparkPeople. Básicamente en una comunidad gratis donde puedes ingresar tus comidas diarias para calcular las calorías y macronutrientes, hacer un blog, leer otros blogs, foros, etc. además de un portal secundario de recetas. Y allí encontré una receta de muffins o quequitos con harina integral y linaza que probé y me encantó. Son dulces, llenan bastante y hasta llevan almendras molidas. Les he puesta también arándanos y una frutilla congelada encima, los que se descongelan y cocinan en el horno!

Pero no fue hasta que vi en GreenLiteBites un video donde Roni, la autora de todas esas recetas, usaba algo llamado «applesauce» como sustituto del aceite en las recetas para hornear que se me ocurrió variar los ingredientes. Applesauce, obviamente, es salsa de manzanas, que lo gringos pueden comprar libremente en los supermercados. Pero acá en Chile, no hay.

El paso siguiente, obvio, era googlear «homemade applesauce». Me llevó a la página de pickyourown, donde explican cómo hacerla. Básicamente es sacarle el corazón a unas 3 manzanas, ponerlas en una olla, agregar muy poca agua (1 centímetro o dos) y dejar que hierva a fuego bajo hasta que las manzanas parezcan postre de hospital, más o menos 10 minutos. Agregar algo de canela y moler en la licuadora o con un mixer. El resultado es, a mis ojos, compota de manzana. No es necesario usar azúcar, si se usan manzanas rojas. Y lo mejor, el excedente se puede congelar!

Al usar esta compota de manzana en lugar del aceite se ahorran muchas calorías y no se nota la diferencia. Incluso la he ocupado para hacer recetas «de caja», ya saben, uno compra la caja en el supermercado y agrega un huevo y tanto de aceite y listo. Para freír, lamentablemente, no sirve 😦

Ocupé «azúcar light» en la receta, que es mitad azúcar normal y mitad sucralosa (1/4 de taza). Si no consiguen de ese tipo, se puede ocupar 1/2 taza de azúcar normal o integral o mezclada con melaza o lo que sea. No creo que suba tanto el valor calórico.

En fin, acá está el video, la receta se explica sola. Y de bonus una canción retro muy cool de fondo 🙂