Eggs and Cauliflower in Tomato Sauce
Eggs are the most practical and quick source of proteins (and vitamins too!) there is.
Though this tends to make people lazy.
How many times you just didn’t want to put much effort into it and just had them scrambled over easy?
And how quickly did you become bored of eating eggs day in and day out?
I take, making eggs taste delicious and interesting, as a challenge.
I love to try to invent new ways to prepare eggs.
They are such a versatile food!
Think of how many applications they have!
Today I show you a quick and delicious recipe to prepare eggs.
It takes a few ingredients, adds some fibers, and it’s plain tasty!
GIF Recipe
Hamburgers with Scarola Stufata
In the area of Naples, they make a delicious dish called ‘scarola stufata’.
It has a ton of olive oil and almost no protein but god if that’s delicious!
Even though the original is harder to make as tasty using less olive oil, I tried my best, with this recipe to recreate a very similar taste.
This recipe will add also a lot of fiber to your diet. In case you don’t know, endive is a vitamin powerhouse too!
In this dish, there are around 300g of endive which will give you around 900% of your daily intake of vitamin K!
Besides that, you get 120% of vitamin A and almost 100% of folate!
This is what I call eating healthy and delicious! It’s possible and this is what I’m trying to do with this project.
GIF Recipe
Mediterranean Sardines and Eggplants
Eggplants season in this part of the world!
If you have been following me for a while now, you should know how much I like sardines and what a powerful food they are.
Plenty of omega-3s, minerals, and protein.
Some people though might be intimidated by the weird oily texture and, sometimes, the smell.
After trying this recipe, I promise, you will start loving sardines like you never thought possible before.
The flavors packed into this simple and easy recipe are incredible.
You can see my genuine reaction to tasting this recipe for the first time. I was seriously having a foodgasm there!
Besides tasting heavenly, this recipe is Keto since it has almost no carbs at all but also Paleo, Primal, LCHF, and, of, course IIFYM.
Also, it requires no cooking (besides the eggplants which you could make in bulk and store in the freezer). It takes literally 5 min to assemble and it’s very cheap too.
I use canned sardines that come at 88g for just 0.53 euro!
I have this for lunch. This recipe is recommended if you are cutting because it has few calories, lots of proteins, and it’s very very satiating.
I haven’t found a proof in the scientific literature but I experience complete appetite suppression for many hours after eating this and I suspect it’s the raw garlic.
I can’t wait for you to try this quick recipe out and have many foodgasms like I had 🙂
GIF Recipe
Simple Keto Chicken with Garlic, Rosemary, and Bay Leaves
Chicken is the bodybuilders most favorite.
Alright, alright, it’s chicken breast and this recipe is with chicken thighs.
Well, I LOVE chicken thighs and can’t help myself coming up with recipes to make them taste even more delicious!
Furthermore, as many of you, I like simple recipes: few ingredients, quick from pan to plate, little cleaning afterward.
Guess what, this one-pot recipe is all of that!
And it’s a keto recipe too!
*ROAR OF APPLAUSE* (thank you, thank you)
It uses mainly herbs that you should have in your kitchen available (if not, what are you even eating hahah) and other staple ingredients.
It uses wine, but as I always say, you don’t need the expensive stuff. Buy the cheap one and it keeps in the fridge forever (it’s for cooking!).
This super easy to make recipe provides almost 50g of protein per serving, 1g of carbs and 630kcal. What an amazing way to cut weight, if you ask me!
This goes great with a salad made of fresh lettuce, fennel, arugula, celery, and a couple of cherry tomatoes. With, it goes without saying, some tasty extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top.
You don’t need to be a bodybuilder to appreciate this keto recipe. Given the high-protein content, though, this recipe is indicated for whoever does resistance training which means lifting weights. Also if you do calisthenics or gymnastic and you are on a ketogenic diet, this recipe is good for you too!
Besides being keto friendly, this recipe is also suited for the following diets: Paleo, Primal, LCHF.
You can replace the wine with beer, vinegar, chicken broth.
Without further ado, here’s the recipe!
GIF Recipe
Chicken Stew with “Fake” Potatoes
Potatoes…who doesn’t love them, am I right?!
All those calories though!
What if I told you that there is a vegetable that tastes and “behaves” 90% like a potato but with half of the calories?
Let me introduce you to a new staple in your diet which makes for a great food hack.
Enter rutabaga.
Yeah, bizarre name. But you might also know it as neep or swede.
I stumbled upon it almost by chance, really.
I live in the Netherlands and my Dutch is very bad. I asked for “Kohlrabi” and the fruit seller packed me a rutabaga. Which I discovered only when getting home and finding this HUGE and weird looking vegetable in my bag.
It actually took me some time even to understand what it was hahaha
I found a lot of delicious recipes on the internet but I didn’t have much time to do fancy stuff so I decided to treat it like I would normally treat a potato and use it to make this chicken stew you can see here.
I am pretty sure that if you would serve this to anyone who didn’t see you cooking, they might never tell that it’s not made with actual potatoes. The more sophisticated foodies might spot the difference and tell you “what kind of potatoes did you use for this dish?”
The difference is incredibly subtle.
The rutabaga/neep/swede has ONLY 36 kcal/100g!! It also provides a mere 8g of carbohydrates of which 3g are fibers. If you are on a ketogenic diet and miss potatoes, this can be for you!
From the nutrition point of view, unfortunately, as with regular potatoes, this is nothing spectacular as it doesn’t provide that high amount of nutrients. Though it has more vitamin C than regular potatoes providing 42% of the Vitamin C RDA in 100g. But to be honest, you need to have a very crappy diet not to consume enough vitamin C 😀
Also for those of you cutting and missing potatoes, try to have some rutabaga! I am going to show you more recipes in the future that are great for cutting!
I decided to make a very quick chicken stew using “kipkluifjes”. I have no idea what’s the English word for that and the closest approximation is chicken thighs though they are very small.
Of course, you can use bigger chicken thighs, drumsticks, and even chicken breast.
This high-protein recipe is a healthy bodybuilding meal great for dinner or post-workout.
At 850 kcal this recipe can be a bulking one for those looking to increase muscle mass. If you are cutting, use chicken breast or remove the skin from the chicken.
This recipe is also high in protein since it provides 54g per serving.
With 32g of net carbs, this can a good post-workout recipe for people on the targeted ketogenic diet (TKD).
If you don’t want to use beer, use wine, vinegar, or chicken broth to make this recipe paleo/primal.
GIF Recipe
Gordon Ramsay’s Muscle Building Pork Chops
Once, I found out Gordon Ramsay’s YouTube channel and I ended up spending the entire Sunday morning watching is cooking videos.
I was drooling over my keyboard.
The guy is a whizz and he’s incredibly passionate about cooking. You can see his heart is in there when he seasons the meat, chops up the onions, or sears a steak.
Given that pork chops is relatively high in protein and I’m bulking, I decided to give Gordon Ramsay’s pork chops recipe a try.
The recipe itself is rather simple though I never basted meat before so that was sort of tricky for me though I managed at the end. It’s a nice technique to bring more flavors and speed up the cooking so that the meat doesn’t dry up and you can give it a try with this recipe.
I wouldn’t recommend this recipe to someone who never cooked before. There are easier recipes that can provide you great taste as well.
The taste was great: rich, full of aromas from the herbs and butter, sweet and sour from the vinegar and the peppers. Some sour cream or crème fraîche would make a great topping for this one or even just some quality extra-virgin olive oil.
Despite being high in fat, it doesn’t have a high amount of calories: only 590kcal/serving. Since I am bulking, I ate 2 😄
How Can All That Fat Help Your Muscle Gains?
Olive oil and pork meat are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids which can increase anabolic hormone levels.
Pork and butter are also a source of saturated fatty acids which, as well, can increase levels of anabolic hormones such as testosterone and growth hormones.
This will contribute to gaining muscle mass faster by increasing your testosterone levels in the long term.
Be sure to include polyunsaturated fatty acids in your diet as well such as omega-3s which you get from eating fatty fishes or by taking fish oil supplements for a proper balance.
Each serving will also provide 35g of protein which is a good high amount for people who want to build muscle and strength (you still need to train though 😜Â ).
Reference
http://jap.physiology.org/content/82/1/49
GIF Recipe
Chicken Drumsticks with Cherry Tomatoes
You know when you open your fridge and you can find just a couple of ingredients and get discouraged?
That’s what happened to me before making this recipe.
I opened my fridge and I just had chicken and cherry tomatoes.
On top of that, I wanted to make something quickly.
That inspired me to create this one-pot very simple and easy recipe which also takes 10-15 min to make.
This recipe is great for a meal-prep too since you can make it in advance, store in the fridge, and reheat before eating.
It’s very high in protein and so low-carb that even people on the ketogenic diet can make it.
The taste is completely unexpected: sweet from the cherry tomatoes, sour from the wine and garlic, and great savoriness from the chicken blend together to give you a unique mouth-watering experience.
This makes a great post-workout or dinner when you are looking to pack some muscle mass with an high-protein meal.
Besides being Keto, this recipe is also Paleo, Primal, LCHF, and ofc IIFYM.
If you want to add more carbs, pair this with some rice or (oven baked) potatoes fries.
About the wine: it doesn’t to be the expensive stuff. I truly buy the cheapest there is and, once opened, it can last in the fridge basically forever. You can use wine for a lot of recipes to make them even more delicious so it’s not a waste!
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
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
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/