We're five days into 2012, and while I don't do resolutions, I do enjoy a year-long project. This year's new venture is food related -- namely to cook one "new" recipe every week this year. This could mean trying one of the low sodium recipes from our cookbooks, converting an old favorite into a low sodium version, or inventing something entirely new. The only rule is that the meal has to meet my sodium restriction and must be something that we haven't made before in its current form.
I will post recipes that we have created (or modified substantially enough to call them our own) here on the blog. If we make something straight from a book or other copyrighted source I will indicate where you can find the recipe. First up is a winter comfort dish that formerly clocked in at 1400-1800 mg of sodium per serving, depending on what kind of cheese and sausage was used (and how much of each we threw into the pot). We used to make this dish a few times a month and I have really missed it. Stay tuned...
Showing posts with label home cooking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home cooking. Show all posts
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Recipe - Bay Scallops in Creamy Wine Butter Sauce Over Rice
A couple of minor modifications reduced the sodium content of this recipe by about 40%. In our version, the main source of sodium is the scallops themselves. This dish has a wonderful flavor and texture, and while not a quick cooking meal the prep work isn't that laborious. And trust me, it is worth taking the time. Even PDM, who is not crazy about zucchini or cream sauces, liked it. A lot.
Ingredients:
For the main course:
8 oz bay scallops (we used frozen ones, thawed just before cooking)
8 oz zucchini (1 large or 2 small), cut into thin half rounds
1/2 vidalia onion, chopped
1 cup white wine (you'll have enough left in the bottle to drink with dinner, so get something good)
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 T unsalted butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
freshly ground black pepper to taste (we like to use a lot)
For two servings of rice:
1/2 cup jasmine rice
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup water mixed with 1/2 t Wyler's no salt instant chicken bouillon
1 T butter
Method:
1. For the rice, bring the liquid ingredients and butter to a boil in a small saucepan, add the rice, stir and cover. Simmer over medium low heat about about 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Keep covered and set aside off the heat until ready to serve.
2. Bring the wine and broth to a boil in a medium pan. Add scallops, return to boil, then lower heat and simmer, covered, for about 3-4 minutes or until the scallops are done. Transfer the scallops to a bowl, cover and set aside.
3. Return the cooking liquid to higher heat and simmer uncovered until it has reduced down to about 1/3 the original volume. This may take up to 20 minutes depending on your heat setting. Stir occasionally.
4. Melt the butter in a medium skillet. Add the onion and zucchini and cook until the vegetables are crisp-tender.
5. Add the scallops to the skillet along with the reduced wine sauce. Add freshly ground pepper and the cream, and cook for about another minute, stirring often, until the cream is heated through and the sauce begins to thicken.
6. Serve immediately over the rice and enjoy! I added a bit of Mrs. Dash lemon pepper seasoning to mine and didn't miss the salt.
Serves two. (We thought the servings were rather large and that we'd never finish all of it, but it was so delicious we ate every morsel and didn't feel overstuffed.)
365 mg sodium per serving, including the rice
Ingredients:
For the main course:
8 oz bay scallops (we used frozen ones, thawed just before cooking)
8 oz zucchini (1 large or 2 small), cut into thin half rounds
1/2 vidalia onion, chopped
1 cup white wine (you'll have enough left in the bottle to drink with dinner, so get something good)
1/2 cup low sodium chicken broth
2 T unsalted butter
1/4 cup heavy cream
freshly ground black pepper to taste (we like to use a lot)
For two servings of rice:
1/2 cup jasmine rice
1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1/2 cup water mixed with 1/2 t Wyler's no salt instant chicken bouillon
1 T butter
Method:
1. For the rice, bring the liquid ingredients and butter to a boil in a small saucepan, add the rice, stir and cover. Simmer over medium low heat about about 15 minutes or until liquid is absorbed. Keep covered and set aside off the heat until ready to serve.
2. Bring the wine and broth to a boil in a medium pan. Add scallops, return to boil, then lower heat and simmer, covered, for about 3-4 minutes or until the scallops are done. Transfer the scallops to a bowl, cover and set aside.
3. Return the cooking liquid to higher heat and simmer uncovered until it has reduced down to about 1/3 the original volume. This may take up to 20 minutes depending on your heat setting. Stir occasionally.
4. Melt the butter in a medium skillet. Add the onion and zucchini and cook until the vegetables are crisp-tender.
5. Add the scallops to the skillet along with the reduced wine sauce. Add freshly ground pepper and the cream, and cook for about another minute, stirring often, until the cream is heated through and the sauce begins to thicken.
6. Serve immediately over the rice and enjoy! I added a bit of Mrs. Dash lemon pepper seasoning to mine and didn't miss the salt.
Serves two. (We thought the servings were rather large and that we'd never finish all of it, but it was so delicious we ate every morsel and didn't feel overstuffed.)
365 mg sodium per serving, including the rice
Sunday, July 17, 2011
The Pizza Experiment
I haven't had pizza since my doctor put me on the low sodium diet. In fact, pizza (along with restaurant soups) was one of the foods he specifically warned me about that tend to have very high sodium content. The only way for me to eat a pizza and stay within the 2000mg daily limit would be to make my own. I really miss pizza so this weekend we decided to try making it at home.
I started by making a batch of pizza dough in the bread machine. We didn't have the nerve to try any of the zero sodium recipes (my experience with cutting the salt in bread recipes has been negative), but since we'd be splitting this batch of dough into multiple pizzas I figured it wouldn't be too bad to keep the salt. It was a pretty basic recipe - just water, oil, sugar, salt, flour and yeast. Maybe I will be braver next time and try one of the salt-less versions now that I have something to compare them to.
Last night's creation was Thai Chicken Pizza - loosely based on this recipe from Trader Joe's website. We used the TJ's peanut satay sauce (a major source of the sodium, so next time we might attempt make our own), but cooked our own chicken without any salt in sesame oil with a little black pepper, added caramelized onions to the toppings, used our own dough, and reduced the amount of mozzarella cheese (and used fresh mozzarella rather than the higher sodium pre-shredded kind).
One generous and very filling serving (about 1/4 of the pizza) clocked in at 999mg, so it wasn't exactly a LOW sodium meal (but definitely didn't put me over the limit due to my very low sodium breakfast and lunch). Comparing this to the sodium content of some other Thai chicken pizza recipes from an internet search, it is definitely a big improvement. And I think we could easily lower the sodium by 30-40% with some minor modifications. The satay sauce was the major contributor, so making our own would be worth the effort. We could substitute a bit of swiss cheese in place of some of the mozzarella. We could also try the no-salt dough recipes, or split the regular dough recipe into three batches and have a thinner crust.
We're using the other half of the pizza dough tonight for a more traditional Italian style pizza. It is also probably going to come in around 1000mg per serving. On this one, we're using spicy Italian sausage from TJs (it isn't "low sodium" but had far less sodium per link than any other sausage we've found). We can probably find ways to reduce the sodium on this one as well, but again - 1000mg at dinner isn't going to get me anywhere near my 2000mg limit today. At least we've got a starting point that isn't too terribly sodium loaded, and now our challenge will be to reduce the sodium without sacrificing the flavor.
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