Cooking

August 1, 2012

Good Taste and Good Dip

Good taste. In fashion, this means not wearing hammer pants with a bolo tie. In manners, this means not gawking at that guy wearing hammer pants with a bolo tie. And in food, well this is where it differs a bit. Good taste might just mean being daring enough to pair the culinary equivalent of hammer pants (zucchini) with a bolo tie (peaches) to discover newfangled, unimaginable ways to create flavor and excite the palate. This is where Karen Palmer enters. (Enter: Karen Palmer) As a past colleague at DailyCandy and a recipient of a culinary degree, she defines refinement, [...]

June 20, 2012

Low-Sodium Leftover Rice

Let’s say you have eight people over for dinner. And you make rice for eight hundred. What do you do with all those leftover grains? A few tubs of tupperware and some basic arithmetic lead us to conclude that what you have are leftovers. Which is just a muse for creativity. And when it comes to rice, you’ve got one of the greatest leftover canvases to work with. There are many stellar, second-day, low-sodium options for rice. You can make spring rolls. You can top the rice with spices and avocado for a cold snack, that’s totally great when you’re on-the-go. You [...]

March 1, 2012

Get Kidney Smart

It’s officially March. Which means it is Kidney Awareness month. Which means it is quiz time. (Don’t stress. I know you’ll kick butt). We talk a lot about low-sodium food. But let’s take, say thirty or so days, to explore kidney-friendly ingredients. And let’s begin with this simple question… What is red and sweet and low in both potassium and sodium? If you said peppers (without noticing the picture at the top of this page), then you are totally correct. And a total kidney-smart rockstar. For many kidney patients, tomatoes–and all their accompanying sauces and such–are too high in potassium [...]

February 23, 2012

2012 Love Your Heart Recipe Rally

Let’s begin with the facts and the numbers, because that’s a very good place to start: The recommended daily sodium intake for a healthy American is 2,300mg, which equals 1 teaspoon of salt The recommended daily sodium intake for over 50% of adults (due to health problems, age, and other needs) is 1,500mg, which equals just over 1/2 teaspoon of salt Nine out of 10 Americans (that’s 90%) eat more than the recommended daily intake of sodium, averaging over 3,300mg (and if you really consider the soy-sauced sushi, chorizo burrito, and milk swamped cereal…that number clilmbs even higher) More than 800,000 [...]

February 23, 2012

Hearts for Hearts

Turns out, taking care of your teeth is mighty important. I was reminded of this during my hour and a half dentist appointment this morning. (Don’t worry–I get to keep all of my teeth. And they even told me I am a super brusher. Not gonna lie. I may have blushed a little. And I’m considering putting it on my resume) But there is another part of your body that needs love. Maybe even more so than your teeth. And that’s your heart. This rubber band knows what I’m talking about. Even if you don’t have any health problems, [...]

January 6, 2012

Low-So January Week 1: Chelsea Travels

Meet some of your best low-sodium friends. They are plastic containers. And they’ll help you take low-sodium meals wherever you roam. It’s just one trick of many that make low-sodium eating and traveling and dinner party-going possible. And our low-sodium hero, Chelsea, already picked up on the idea during her first week of low-sodium living. She’s so smart. But enough from me. Let’s hear about it from her…. (And if I got paid to write this blog, I’d surely be worried about my job right about now. This girl’s got skills) LOW-SO JANUARY DIARY: WEEK ONE Greetings from week one [...]

January 3, 2012

A New Year and 7 Links

A few months ago one of my favorite fellow bloggers tapped me on the shoulder to join him for the “My 7 Links Project”–the purpose of which was to reflect on one’s own blog, to resurface posts that had been lost in the shuffle, and to build a web of community by asking other online writers to do the same. Now in typical busy life fashion, many book deadlines, holiday egg nog, and the need for sleep kept getting in the way of this post. Weeks and weeks have gone by. And the words “write 7 links” constantly appeared on [...]

November 22, 2011

Salt-Free Any Holiday Recipe

This is a salt-free curry coconut gravy. That took twenty minutes to whip up. That’s a perfect substitute for saltier, meat-based gravies. That comes from a recipe I borrowed from Todd & Diane. And this Thanksgiving, I want you to do a little borrowing too. I challenge you to cook from a cookbook. From memory. Or by the smells you remember and the tastes you crave for so-and-so’s so-and-so that you look forward to eating every November. This Thanksgiving, I dare you to salt-free your favorite holiday recipes. It doesn’t matter how much cheese, bacon, brine, or store-bought, sodium-filled ingredients [...]

November 18, 2011

Low-Sodium Thanksgiving Turkey

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And turkey day is quickly approaching. But before you grab your bird for next Thursday, give a gander to these low-sodium tips on how to keep your meat light, dark, juicy, and low-sodium. A WORD ON THE BIRD Like chicken, Thanksgiving turkeys tend to come majorly pre-plumped with sodium and many are brined as well. Yikers. If this is new news to you, it probably just took the wind out of your Mayflower sails. But it doesn’t mean you can’t carve up a beautiful bird this Thanksgiving. And there are actually a lot [...]

October 14, 2011

Low-Sodium Collard Sandwich Wrap

It usually starts with a big flappy sheet of lavash or a soft tortilla. Those flat, towel-like breads that so easily twist and snuggle around your sandwich fillings. And while I’ve bought salt-free lavash and no-sodium corn tortillas before, they are either special grocery store items that only show up once in a while (lavash) or they tend to crack and break apart when you roll them (tortilla). Which means a sturdy, low-sodium sandwich wrap is difficult to make for a simple Wednesday lunch. Le sigh. But you didn’t think I was going to give up that easily, did you? [...]

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