Keto Caprese
If you are short on time and don’t have enough time to cook this keto lunch recipe can be a lifesaver.
This dish is called Caprese. and I’ve been eating it when I was in Italy very often and it was one of my most favorite meals!
Especially if you use buffalo mozzarella and very fresh cherry tomatoes, this can turn easily into a foodgasmic experience 🙂
You don’t need fancy recipes to eat well. This is what south Italian cuisine is all about: few ingredients, simple to make, tastebuds ecstasy guaranteed.
This dish is very low carb, therefore, it can be eaten on a ketogenic diet.
It’s also dirty cheap and very quick to prepare since no cooking is involved!
Gif Recipe
Mouth-Watering Italian Pork Sausage with Mushrooms and Ricotta
Pork sausage was on discount, therefore I bought 1.5 kg.
What to do with it?
Pork sausage is one of those foods that you can put together with anything and it will taste superb.
This does indeed in this amazing recipe I am presenting to you today.
It’s pretty low in carbs so perfect for a ketogenic diet or low-carb high-fat (LCHF).
If you don’t care about your carbs intake, this goes perfectly with pasta. I had it with some gnocchi and, boy, was this foodgasmic!
Trust me, it tastes way better than it looks 🙂
Gif Recipe
Italian Cabbage Dumplings
You know, well, everybody knows that cabbage is good for you.
Right. But that taste…
I wanted to include some green cabbage in my diet and tried to think of how can I make this enjoyable and not a dread.
I thought: Chinese have been using green cabbage since forever and they make delicious stuff out of them!
Since I am not Chinese and I wouldn’t dare mess around with such a complex, rich, and ancient culinary art, I decided to give Chinese cabbage rolls an Italian spin so nobody gets offended. Though if you are Chinese and want to teach me how to make high-protein healthy cabbage rolls, please write me 🙂
So, what makes this dish “Italian”?
Besides the usual aromatics (onion, carrots, leek) I used red wine and fennel seeds. Fennel seeds really give a twist to this dish!
This has only 19g of carbs per serving which makes it ideal for someone on a LCHF diet or keto (when carbs are kept below 50g).
It’s also fairly high-protein. But if you want to increase the amount of protein without increasing calories, go for lean beef (here I used a fatty cut).
This dish can easily be boosted in protein to have 30-40g per serving just by using lean beef.
This dish has less than 500kcal per serving so it can be used for cutting as well (use lean beef in this case which will also increase the amount of protein per serving!)
If I had a broiler, I would have put some Parmesan cheese on top and gave them a couple of mins to become crunchy and even more delicious!
Gif Recipe
Stuffed Eggplants
My grandma (and mom) used to make this all the time: a big tradition in southern Italian cuisine.
The flavors are incredible and the way they combine makes you feel in Italy after a first mouthful.
Little that I realized, how high-protein and low-carb high-fat this dish can be!
Therefore, whenever I have some time and can find cheap eggplants, this dish is a must do for my post-workouts.
This is very filling too so if you are cutting you can make it as well.
So, there you have it, the authentic south Italian stuffed eggplants recipe adapted for muscle mass gains!
(I’m sure my grandma would kill me if she knew I posted her recipe hahah)
Gif Recipe
Sausage and Beans (Rural Italian Classic)
Have you ever heard of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill? They are famous Italian actors, famous for action-comedy movies such as “They Call Me Trinity”.
In this movie, there is an epic scene of almost 3 minutes in which the main character is eating a delicious beans course straight from the pan.
The scene is so well done that you start drooling right away.
Your brain goes: “MUST. HAVE. NOW.”
I tried to imagine how that recipe would be like and went about to re-create it. t was as delicious as in the movie.
It was as delicious as in the movie it seems to be.
This is a healthy, high-protein, low-carb recipe which is great for building muscles!
If you want to be as strong as Bud Spencer, you should try this recipe. It’s super easy!
This recipe is also gluten-free.
Note: the carbs indicated on the nutrition label are already net carbs (as in the style of European nutrition labels)
Gif Recipe
2
Pork Sausage with Lentils (Very Filling High-Protein Lunch/Dinner)
How to make a cheap, (fairly) healthy, and high-protein dinner?
Well, you use pork, legumes (lentils in this case), and veggies!
This recipe is a great high-protein lunch/dinner idea since it packs a lot of proteins and a ton of fibers (for those of you struggling with fiber intake!). It delivers an incredible 38g of fibers per serving. If I remember correctly that’s the recommended intake for an adult male!
While being all good for your intestinal health, it’s also very delicious as the aroma of the pork meat perfectly combines with the texture and taste of lentils and tomato sauce. Then, the added spices add a touch of unexpected flavor that blends delightfully with the whole dish.
It’s not a quick recipe (it might require up to 50 min), mind you, since you have to cook the lentils but if you have a slow cooker than it’s perfect!
Since this is a high-calories recipe, it’s ideal if you struggle to gain weight and muscle mass.
This recipe is good also for people on the slow-carb diet!
The amount of carbs in the label is net carbs (as in European nutrition labels’ style).
Gif Recipe
Natural Stamina&Libido Boosting Recipe
I know, I know, the title of this video sounds super scammy, but stay with me for a second and I will explain to you why this recipe may (YMMV) will increase stamina and libido.
Sardines Testosterone Booster
I’ve been eating sardines for more than 1 year, every day.
Not only sardines are high in protein, they are also packed with omega-3, vitamins, and minerals. Ah, and I haven’t mentioned how cheap they are…
Where I live (The Netherlands), you can buy a can, containing 88g of sardines for just 53 euro cents!
100g of sardines will provide you with 25g of protein, 1.5g of omega3s (!!), 68% of your RDA of vitamin D3, and 9% of your RDA of zinc.
Why did I mention specifically omega3s, vitamin D3, and zinc?
Because higher intakes of these are correlated with high testosterone levels.
Do I have to tell you why having higher testosterone is good for you?
Besides that, omega3s are anabolic, which means that they promote by themselves increases in muscle mass and strength (you still have to train though).
Stamina Boosting Foods
But this dish doesn’t contain sardines only. We have a whole combo of manliness enhancing foods!
Beetroot
Enhances blood flow in your body. It can be for this reason be used as pre-workout to “increase the pump” or to increase endurance. Now, it has never been studied as a “sexual performance enhancer” but my guess is that if it enhances endurance exercise it will naturally enhance stamina too.
Garlic
Aka “natural viagra” aka “vegetable viagra”. Since I started eating 1-2 cloves daily (steaming or boiling removes bad breath giving compounds) I feel 14 years old again.
Ginger
It is not very well known as testosterone/libido enhancer yet it can increase sperm count and quality, testosterone, and ejaculate volume. Besides that, it’s truly a great “superfood” enhancing also your memory and lowering inflammation.
Then we have other components in this dish that are just straight good for your health and immunity. Because even if you have high libido and stamina, if you’re sick, there’s no use to that 🙂
Sauerkaut are a source of probiotics, fibers, and vitamin C (and lemon juice too). These will make you less susceptible to getting sick and there’s one study saying that vitamin C can lower the symptoms of depression, leading to more frequent intercourses (the study is funded by a pharma company so this last piece might be total bs).
That’s it! Simple, easy, high-protein, and also tastes great! Try this recipe for yourself and let me know how it goes!
References
http://jap.physiology.org/content/82/1/49
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/5/2/509
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26679702
http://jap.physiology.org/content/early/2015/08/27/japplphysiol.00066.2015
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/102/1/115.abstract?etoc
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2958879/
https://examine.com/supplements/ginger/
https://examine.com/supplements/vitamin-c/
https://examine.com/nutrition/non-traditional-use-for-probiotics-illness-in-athletes/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3249897
https://examine.com/supplements/beet-root/
Gif Recipe
Simple Yet Tasty Pork Sausage Risotto
Today we go for something rather sophisticated but actually incredibly easy to make.
On top of that, it is gluten-free and perfect if you are coeliac and doing bodybuilding.
The recipe is not the quickest but it’s simple and straightforward. This would make you look like a master chef even if your biggest culinary achievement so far has been scrambled eggs.
I would recommend this recipe to whoever has never tried making risotto since it’s very basic and simple and can help you getting started.
Once you can master this high-protein risotto, every other risotto recipe is going to be a no-brainer and will add endless possibilities to your cooking repertoire. For instance, you could try this foodgasmic risotto with pumpkin and pork sausage.
I love to have risotto as my post-workout because I can get in one package carbs, proteins, and fat with benefits of an incredible creamy taste.
Great for when you are bulking and want to eat a lot of calories in a single meal!
Scrambled Eggs with Cauliflower, Garlic and Anchovies
Now cauliflowers are cheap. What can I do with them besides the usual boring “cauliflower pizza”?
I wanted to make something low-carb even keto-friendly for my breakfast. Furthermore, I wanted a low calories high-protein keto breakfast which is quick, easy to make and right delicious.
As usual, I looked at my Italian background and came up with this incredibly delicious and easy keto breakfast recipe.
Crunchy Mackerel with Sauteed Mushrooms in Lemon Juice Sauce
I love mackerel. But its smell doesn’t love my house so I rarely cooked it.
Until I stumbled upon this method to avoid it smelling the entire house when cooking it in a pan.
Simply put a bowl with white vinegar just next to the stove.
When I read it I thought of another mambo jumbo technique you can find plenty of on the internet. But, hey, white vinegar is super cheap so why not trying!
It worked!!
Because I was afraid that the smelly smoke would contaminate my softboxes diffusers, I didn’t film it, unfortunately. But I could take nice pics to put on the website as you can see.
Why is this recipe a good post-workout?
Mackerel contains high amounts of omega3s which have an anabolic effect. This means that they can stimulate directly muscle protein synthesis which becomes synergistic with your workout.
How does it taste like?
Fatty fish cooked in a hot pan with olive oil is amazing because, when you sear it, the Maillard reaction takes place and the fish surface becomes super crunchy. Having the oil infused with garlic before searing the fish will infuse all that goodness into the fish.
Let me tell you what a match made in heaven is mackerel with olive oil, garlic, and lemon!
The parley then will completely remove the fishy taste creating a great balance with the lemon and all the other tastes.
I’m really proud of this simple yet succulent dish!