Recipes

Brain Boost Recipes

I’m super lazy when it comes to personal meal prep. You’ll notice a theme in my lack of interest with fussy recipes. Most of these can be made in 5 minutes. So when it comes to family dinner, you may want to do some further digging. I’ll add and or expand this as you nudge so don’t be shy, hit reply! (to the daily email)

Whip it good

Heavy cream is your friend for adding fat quickly and cheaply to your diet. Suggestions below for those who are not cool with diary (but also a test to consider). Why put this at the top? Most adults have tried a diet of some sort. How many of those have included Heavy Whipping Cream?

Exactly.

So I want to make it perfectly clear that HWC is welcomed. Beautiful sauces, frozen treats. Win-win.

Quick dessert: frozen whip cream

  1. Use mixer to whip a bowl of heavy cream until it forms stiff peaks.
  2. Fold in chocolate or cinnamon (both?!) and maybe some cocoa nibs.
  3. Cover a jelly roll pan (baking sheet with sides) with wax paper and spread out your Whipped mix evenly.
  4. Place your pan in the freezer for about 3 hours.
  5. Remove the pan, press your cookie cutter of choice all the way through your frozen whip cream.
  6. To remove the shape slip your hand under the wax paper and gently push the cut shape up and out of the cookie cutter.

Dinner Ideas

  • Lamb burger with cabbage wrap (add spinach and arugula) w sautéed shiitake
  • Salmon w Caesar salad and skin croutons
  • Caramelized diced cauliflower and onion with garam marsala and dark meat chicken or turkey
  • Sautéed cabbage, onion, and acorn squash
  • Garlic roasted spread on pan seared liverwurst
  • Cheese burger w lettuce wraps or cabbage leaf
  • Caesar salad with anchovies and dressing
  • Fried eggs!
  • Grilled haloumi and liverwurst
  • Sautéed liver slices with avocado (great source of biotin)
  • Fry in butter or grill fish codfish (good source of iodine)
  • Ribeye with fresh veggie stir fry (stir fry in butter)
  • Lasagna with cauliflower sheets instead of noodles
  • Veal Piccata minus the flour dredge, sauteed veal with lemon, butter, capers and white wine sauce
  • Cauliflower pearls with cheese sauce baked with cheese and pork rinds on top, a crunchy mac&cheese minus mac

Lunch and Snack Ideas

  • Cauliflower nachos – my personal fav – thinly sliced cauli, covered with cheese, broiled 3-5 min.
  • Creamed spinach and arugula with cauliflower
  • Brazil nuts 1-2 day for selenium
  • Fried eggs
  • Butter balls – similar to Brie recipe
  • Choco butter balls
    • cocoa butter + coconut oil + butter, roll in: cinnamon, turmeric, salt, chia, pecans, cocoa, (good quick breakfast too)

Brie hazelnut balls

  • 4oz Brie warmed just enough to be pliable
  • 2oz hazelnut toasted and finely chopped
  • Fresh thyme, add to warmed brie
  • scoop warmed brie into hands, form ball, roll in hazelnuts, place on wax paper, refrigerate until firm (2-3hrs), serve or store covered in fridge (good for a week in my experience, avoid storing near onions!)

Meal pattern for normal month – single person and family

For those concerned about minerals – you can actually get everything you need in the meal plans, but if you are particularly nervous, dig through these specifics.

Selenium

Brazil nuts (one or two a day are enough to improve selenium status), wild salmon, kidneys, crimini and shiitake mushrooms, lamb, turkey, shrimp, cod, halibut, and egg yolks are all good sources of selenium.

Biotin

Eggs, meat, liver, it’ll be hard to not get enough eating this way.

Magnesium

  1. Leafy greens, especially swiss chard and spinach.
  2. Nuts, seeds, dark chocolate, espresso, and halibut.
  3. Mineral water. One brand, Gerolsteiner, is particularly high in magnesium. Or you could find a spring nearby for some real (free) spring water.
  4. Supplement. The chelated magnesiums (those ending in “-ate,” like citrate, glycinate, or taurate) tend to be the best absorbed. You can also apply magnesium oil topically for transdermal absorption. Better yet, soak your feet for 20-30 minutes in warm Mg water. Best for foot soaks: XXX. Second best for foot soaks: Epsom salts.

K2

  1. Food. For the animal form, MK-4, you need to eat pastured yolks, goose liver, grass-fed butter, aged cheese, and fish eggs. For the vegetable form, MK-7, natto – the traditional (and sticky) Japanese fermented soybeans – is your best bet. Of course, we don’t know exactly how much K2 is in any of these foods without extensive testing, and none of the online nutritional databases include vitamin K2 in their analyses. Therefore, the safest route is the one that involves eating lots of the aforementioned foods.
  2. Food-based supplements like high-vitamin butter oil.
  3. Straight-up supplements, like Thorne MK-4 drops or Life Extension, which has both Mk-4 and Mk-7.

Iodine

Add seaweed to bone broth for trace minerals like iodine.

Sweeteners

I just don’t. And I strongly recommend against. There are low cal and calorie free sweeteners. This isn’t about that. Calories are not the issue. It’s about your hormones. There’s evidence that even stimulating the part of your brain that thinks sweet is enough to generate an insulin response in some folks. If Insulin is up, glucagon is down and you’re dropping out of keto.

If you’re keto-adapted and have been for a few weeks, you are less likely to crave sweets. But, you may still crave. Don’t give yourself a faux dessert, go have what you want. Feast. You want a slice of cake, go get the best slice you know. Then get yourself back into ketosis. It might take a few days, but that’s part of the human experience. Enjoy your life!

Grocery List example

  • spinach arugula mix
  • Blueberry (test these once you’re adapted)
  • Cabbage
  • Cauliflower
  • Acorn squash
  • Shiitake
  • Avocado
  • Onion
  • Garlic
  • Salmon w skin
  • 85/15 ground beef
  • Bones for broth
  • BUTTER
  • EGGS
  • Haloumi
  • Assorted cheeses
  • Salt
  • Pure cocoa

Deconstructed egg roll

  • Cabbage sliced and sautéed
  • Eggs
  • Pork rinds sautéed
  • Ground beef with seasoning
  • Fried egg over the beef over the cabbage + kale sauté

Rehydrating liquid – feeling crabby or hungover? Try this.

  • Glass Jar 16-32oz
  • 1oz ACV
  • 1/2 t Potassium chloride (Nu-Salt) or similar
  • 1/2 t Sea Salt
  • Lemon/lime, spice (Cinnamon stick perhaps) or edible essential oil to taste

Dr Berry’s Keto food list – it’s an okay resource if you need a place to start.

Youtube playlist for Keto Recipes – I’ve tested many of these.