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Autoimmune Recipe – Turkey Rice Soup with Grilled Fish Salad

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Turkey Rice Soup with Grilled Fish Salad

Here’s a great autoimmune recipe that works well with those that have an autoimmune disease (especially gut-related).  The turkey and the rice can be substituted or removed in the turkey rice soup and you can use just about any type of white fish in the grilled fish salad (my favorites are cod, grouper, and corvina).

turkey soup and grilled fish salad

Turkey Rice Soup

Brown Rice Recipe (Takes 1-hour to complete)

  • 1 Cup gluten-free organic brown rice
  • 1 Tbsp (or more) minced garlic or chop up garlic cloves
  • Chop up 1/8 yellow onion
  • 2 Tbsp coconut oil
  • Ground Pepper
  • 2 Cups Water

On medium heat, add coconut oil, onions, and ground pepper.  Let it fry up for 2-3 minutes (onions soft and/or translucent), add in garlic for another minute. Add in rice & water, cover until it boils.  Reduce heat to low, uncover & stir, cover again for 50 minutes.

Turkey Soup (Takes 1-hour to complete)

  • 2 Tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 bunch celery
  • 2 cups sweet onion
  • 1 1/2 Serrano Pepper or 1 Jalapeno removing some seeds
  • 6 Cups Water
  • 5-7 carrots
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 bunch curly / Italian parsley
  • 4-5 cups cooked turkey
  • 1 cup of coconut or almond milk (if you can handle dairy, use cream)
  • 1/2 cup corn
  • 1 cup peas
  • 5 minced garlic cloves
  • Sea Salt to taste

Chop up the carrots, celery, onion, parsley, turkey, and garlic and set aside.  Add in the oil, saute the celery & onion with pepper & Serrano / Jalapeno for 5-7 minutes.  Bring water to a boil, add in bay leaves, carrots, garlic, parsley and meat and simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Add in coconut milk, corn, peas and (Optional) veggies like Swiss Chard, Kale, and/or Spinach and simmer for another 15 minutes..  Combine cooked rice and enjoy!

Grilled Fish Salad

This recipe comes from Whole Foods.  You can substitute the vinaigrette on the fish for other herb-based vinaigrettes out there.  My choice is a local raw vegan organic like this one.

  • 1 pound white fish (I used Cod)
  • Coconut oil (Brush on fish)
  • 6 tablespoons prepared red wine vinaigrette
  • 3/4 teaspoon fennel seeds, crushed
  • 1/2 teaspoon coarse sea salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon cracked black pepper
  • 5 cups baby spinach leaves
  • 1 large tomato, cut into wedges
  • 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1/3 cup chopped pitted Niçoise or Kalamata olives
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons drained capers

Prepare a grill for high heat cooking and oil grill grates. Brush swordfish with 1 tablespoon of the vinaigrette and sprinkle with the fennel, salt and pepper. Let sit for a few minutes and then brush / add on the coconut oil to reduce sticking to grill.  Grill the fish, turning it once  until nicely browned (with grill marks) and just opaque in the center, 8 to 9 minutes.

Toss spinach, tomato and red onion with the remaining vinaigrette and mound the mixture on a platter. Scatter with olives and capers. Cut the fish into chunks, arrange it on top of the salad and serve.

The Benefits of Soluble Fiber

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Adding onto my post about insoluble fiber and the benefits of soluble fiber, I have thoroughly tested acacia powder – one of the most soluble fiber supplements you can get.  Acacia powder is produced from the gum of the Acacia tree (also known as gum arabic) and contains 2.5 grams of soluble fiber per tablespoon.  I suggest using Heather’s Tummy Fiber as it seemed to agree more with my gut than the original fiber supplement I took.  Plus it has a prebiotic that helps with digestion.

Heather's Tummy Fiber Pouch

I Use Heather’s Tummy Fiber Pouch

Why did I need to take it?  Because my diet lacks bread & grains, the binding of foods was difficult due to all the insoluble fiber I was eating.  I originally started with Psyllium Husk only to find out it was too rough for my system.  Frantically finding another solution, I had received an email about Acacia fiber from my mother (thank you!) while at the local vitamin store.  Amazingly the clerk knew about it but didn’t mention it to me.  I cannot stress how important it is to have a good support system and asking for help when you need it.

Here are the doses I took:

– Week 1:  Started 1 Tbps in the morning.  Felt HORRIBLE after taking it.  My penalty for not paying attention to the directions.  You need to take it slowly…
– End of Week 1:  1/2 Tsp morning, 1/2 Tsp late afternoon.
– Week 2 – Same dosage as week 1.  Felt slightly better and did not have to go to the bathroom as frequently.
– Week 3 – 1 Tsp morning, 1 Tsp in the late afternoon.
– Week 4 – 1 1/2  Tsp morning, 1 1/2 Tsp in the late afternoon.
– Week 5 – 1/2 Tbsp morning, 1/2 Tbsp late afternoon.
– …and so on until my goal is 1 Tbsp morning, 1 Tbsp late afternoon / evening.

It’s important to know that (especially in the beginning) the day I would add more dosage, I would get a flare-up.  I would last typically 1-2 days & then subside.  As weeks passed I noticed “my stuff” was binding and I would be less inflamed.  This, in turn, allowed me to start working out at the pool and take less ibuprofen.  And although I wake up 1-2 times a night, I don’t have the urgency to go to the bathroom.

 My Goal

While I don’t expect to be off a soluble fiber supplement for awhile, I eventually want to include grains into my diet to replace the acacia fiber without having a flare-up.  In order to do that, I will need to take the Cyrex test again to see where I stand with Gluten intra-cellular reactivity.

Until then, I am trying to find alternatives like this butternut squash pizza dough recipe.  To make it the least processed, I cut two organic butternut squashes & baked them in a shallow pan with water for an hour (video). Toppings included tomatoes, kalamata olives, artichoke hearts, red onion and healthy pesto from scratch (almond / soy milk for consistency, 2 cups fresh basil, 3 cloves garlic, and 1 cup walnuts and blend together).  Over 90% of the ingredients listed were organic.

Bunnernut Squash Pizza

How Did It Taste?  Well, it ain’t no traditional pizza.  But for someone who can’t eat it, this is about as healthy of a pizza as you can get.  The dough is dry and the pesto doesn’t have enough flavor.  The other toppings are great though.  If I try this again, I would add more ingredients to the pesto and find a way to make the dough less dry.

How Did I React?  Having a pizza this size on it’s own is very filling for my body and I flare up because of it.  Going a day without it I notice an improvement in my health.  I tried a smaller size (1/3 of what you see in the photo above) along with a meal and still did not feel as good.

Side note:  On 11/3 I made a homemade marinara sauce with meatballs & rice – all seems OK.  On 11/5 I substituted rice for organic brown rice pasta – got a flare-up.  Rice cereal still seems OK, but until my symptoms are well under control, I’ll be skipping the “breads” and “pastas”.  It’s just not worth it.