“Ciorba” Turkey Soup – AIP and Paleo

Romanian cuisine is my favorite out of all the East-European cuisines. It is my national cuisine and because I appreciate it so much, I made a couple of tests in turning some of my favorite Romanian recipes into dishes that are AIP and Paleo Friendly.

In this article we’re going to talk about the Romanian traditional soup, which is called “ciorba” in Romanian. The “Ciorba” is a soup with diced pieces of meat and vegetables that we consume in Romania very often – almost on a daily basis. What we like the best about it is that it’s packed with lots of vitamins, it’s served as hot as one can resist and it’s made from all organic ingredients. In Romania we use the farmer’s market very much because it offers 100% natural produce and meat from small farms that don’t use any additives.

So here’s my AIP reinterpretation of the Romanian turkey “ciorba” 🙂

Here's are the ingredients I used:

• 1 lb diced turkey meat (I use chest)
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 white onion – chopped
• 1 zucchini – diced
• 3 liters filtered water
• 2 carrots – chopped
• 1 cup mushrooms – diced
• 1/4 celery root – chopped
• 1 medium parsnip – chopped
• 1 handful parsley
• 1 Tbsp Himalayan salt

And here's how I prepared my delicious turkey "ciorba":

• I used a larger pan and heated the olive oil on medium heat, then added in the onion, and stewed it for 1 min until it turned glossy. I then added in the diced turkey, mushrooms, chopped carrots, chopped, parsnip and chopped celery root and stewed together for another 8-10 minutes until they all combined. I stirred continuously to avoid anything sticking to the pan.
• After they all cooked together for 10 min, I added in all the water and the salt and let everything cook on medium heat for another 10 minutes.
• I then added in the diced zucchini and set the heat to medium-high and let the ciorba soup cook for another 10 minutes, or until the zucchini was tender (test with a fork).
• I removed the pot from heat and added in the fresh parsley for extra flavor.

The “ciorba” soup is served as hot as you can handle and you can store it in the fridge and serve for another 2-3 days.

I was very satisfied with my AIP reinterpretation of the traditional Romanian ciorba and to be completely honest, this is one of the dishes I highly recommend for the main course. Why? Well, because it contains just about everything the body needs for a daily first course.

I hope you enjoy the ciorba as much as I do and that you’ll let me know if you have any questions! 🙂

Guacamole – AIP and Paleo

Avocado has been my source of inspiration lately. I like its texture, it’s color and especially I like that it’s full of antioxidants and vitamins! It’s quite funny because we don’t grow this fruit in Romania, but I’m so glad I discovered it better since I’ve started my AIP diet.

Avocado is both carbohydrates and healthy fats, which makes it the perfect choice for the AIP and Paleo diets and the whole process of healing your leaky gut. And to make things more interesting, it contains some of the most valuable vitamins, like:

• Vitamin A
• Vitamin B6
• Vitamin C
• Vitamin E
• Vitamin K

Now enough with the praise, let’s do some AIP guacamole! 🙂

Here are the ingredients I used for one serving:

• 1 ripe avocado (the kind of use has a darker color when ripe)
• 1/2 medium size onion
• 1 tsp olive oil (the avocado is already oily so more oil makes it a bit icky). I used this olive oil since it’s 100% organic:

• 1 tsp lemon juice
• sea salt per taste

Here’s how I prepared it:

• I cut the avocado in two halves and took out its kernel. I then peeled it using a large spoon (if the fruit is ripe you just bring in the tip of the spoon between the pulp and the peel and you can easily take out the pulp by rotating the spoon)
• I placed the fruit in a small mixing bowl and mashed it all using a fork. It needs to be completely mashed in order to be able to mix it with the rest of ingredients.
• I then added in the chopped onion, the olive oil, the lemon juice and the sea salt and blended all ingredients together until I obtained a homogeneous mixture.

Yes, it’s that simple!

I like to eat the guacamole as it is OR as a side dish to Romanian traditional AIP “bucket meat”.

*If you prefer a bruschetta snack you can easily top any type of AIP or Paleo bread with it and you’ll have your super snack ready in no time.

Enjoy!