After our first good cool front in Houston, I finally gave in. It was the weekend, I decided, to finally find a recipe and make some stew. Chris snorted when I suggested it but I was determined. It was cold! And now there needed to be a good, hearty bowl of yummy stew with tasty leftovers for warming up with later...
I have to admit, buying packages of "miscellaneous beef" at the store made me laugh. Hesitate a little, but laugh anyway. I'd settled on this recipe - it looked straight forward enough and didn't have an abundance of things we didn't want, like tomatoes or mushrooms or what-have-you.
I started doing this while Chris was napping, leaving that same sweet cornbread recipe for later, towards the end of cooking. It came together pretty easily at first - as suggested, I used beef broth instead of bouillon and switched 1/2 cup of that for 1/2 cup of red wine, and then started cutting up veggies while the meat was stewing. It smelled pretty dang good and I wandered off, already pleased with myself.
I did add a few cloves of minced garlic in with the veggies, but immediately I saw a pretty glaring problem - there wasn't nearly enough liquid. Not even close. But I was out of beef broth (stupidly having poured out the remainder of a can already in an effort to clean as I went along), so I had to resort to water.
As otehrs suggested, I did triple the amount of corn starch I added, but after a few minutes it still wasn't thickening up and I'll admit that I panicked. At this point it was pretty much watery soup, and with the timer ticking down I gave in and added about 1/4 cup flour mixed with an even amount of cool water. To my relief, it finally started thickening, and it still smelled great. Cornbread was prepared and cooked, and everything looked like it was perfect.
Unfortunately, looks aren't everything. The stew wasn't inedible, it just didn't taste like much of anything. Bland, bland, bland... even salt couldn't save it. It tasted very vaguely like herbs and faintly like beef broth, but nothing like the rich, savory stew that I remember my father making when I was a kid, and the liquid was a weird sort of milky-brownish-gray, which makes me think I got carried away with the flour. Maybe it did need what other commenters were suggesting - a tablespoon of A1, Worcestershire sauce and ketchup, something to give the broth some flavor. I'm pretty sure I added oregano and basil to the seasoning, definitely used a dredge of Mrs. Dash and flour before browning the meat, but it was still bland city.
Ah well, you win some and you lose some, I guess.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Fall has fallen
BRR! After the absolutely blistering summer we had in Houston, it's so nice to actually have to break out a jacket to go to work in the morning. And let me tell you, the new drop in the mercury has definitely got me thinking soups and stews. Maybe this weekend I'll get adventurous and try making something like that... hmm. Of course supposedly it's going to go back to being in the 80s, so maybe not.
Last night was taco night at the house - especially after we discovered that 3 corn tortilla taco shells only have 135 mg of sodium total (or at least the Old El Paso brand ones do, anyway.)
So on the table last night we had the previously mentioned taco seasoning mix, which was just as good as we remembered. It worked just as well with beef as it did with chicken, even though I got the 73/27 ground beef at the store, forgetting how greasy it was. I don't know if it was just a half-assed job of draining the meat after browning or what, but man that was greasy.
As an aside here, I almost always throw in some Mrs Dash when I'm browning pretty much any kind of meat. The thing I like about that is that there are a million different varieties of it, and as far as I know they're all salt-free. I wouldn't rely just on the taco seasoning afterwards, though I don't know why... but instinct tells me that it would turn out bland. In my completely unprofessional opinion, seasoning while cooking melds the flavors a little better. Add some chopped onion about halfway through browning and yum.
I also made Buffy's Refried Beans again, but this time I tried using 2 tbsp (unsalted) butter and 2 tsp vegetable oil instead of the lard/bacon drippings, and I seasoned it with a sprinkle of the taco seasoning instead of straight cayenne pepper, though I did add a miniscule extra dash of that. I have to admit, I was REALLY thinking it wasn't going to work at first. The beans didn't seem to be absorbing the butter very well and there was this weird kind of butter-and-bean-juice sort of sludge hovering around, but once I added 1/3 cup of chicken broth it finally came together. I reduce the recipe to suit 1 can of pinto beans, since there's just the two of us, but if you're really all about the beans or you have a large family do the 3 cans. It seems like it would be an insane amount of beans but it's actually not - splitting one can in half yields just about enough to fill one of these 6-oz custard cups. In the end, I thought they were every bit as good with a change in seasoning, and using reduced sodium beans and chicken broth didn't seem to alter the flavor at all. I did add a tiny bit of salt, but it was a tiny round perhaps the circumference of a pea in my hand, and it honestly would have done fine without.
I also made Mexican Rice, which Chris said tasted great. (For some reason by the time food was done I just wasn't in a rice mood, and I forgot to taste it anyway.) This time the Kroger brand of tomato sauce won over the Hunt's, despite being much lower sodium - 280 mg in 1/4 cup as opposed to 410 in the same amount of the Hunt's. We tasted both and the latter tasted MUCH too salty to us - so either it's just excessively salty in general, or we're starting to get used to this. As one commenter recommended I softened up the onion in the oil first before I added the rice to brown, and like everyone else my rice didn't even come close to "puffing" while browning. I also added about 1 and 1/2 tsp of the taco seasoning at the end of the browning, just before I added in the chicken broth and tomato paste.
Now with all that chicken broth running around here, this may not really be the lowest sodium thing ever, but that was really the only source of sodium in any of it aside from the tomato paste. Well, and whatever amount of cheese went on the tacos. And the beans. But still it wasn't too bad, and there were no complaints so I think this is going in the save box.
Last night was taco night at the house - especially after we discovered that 3 corn tortilla taco shells only have 135 mg of sodium total (or at least the Old El Paso brand ones do, anyway.)
So on the table last night we had the previously mentioned taco seasoning mix, which was just as good as we remembered. It worked just as well with beef as it did with chicken, even though I got the 73/27 ground beef at the store, forgetting how greasy it was. I don't know if it was just a half-assed job of draining the meat after browning or what, but man that was greasy.
As an aside here, I almost always throw in some Mrs Dash when I'm browning pretty much any kind of meat. The thing I like about that is that there are a million different varieties of it, and as far as I know they're all salt-free. I wouldn't rely just on the taco seasoning afterwards, though I don't know why... but instinct tells me that it would turn out bland. In my completely unprofessional opinion, seasoning while cooking melds the flavors a little better. Add some chopped onion about halfway through browning and yum.
I also made Buffy's Refried Beans again, but this time I tried using 2 tbsp (unsalted) butter and 2 tsp vegetable oil instead of the lard/bacon drippings, and I seasoned it with a sprinkle of the taco seasoning instead of straight cayenne pepper, though I did add a miniscule extra dash of that. I have to admit, I was REALLY thinking it wasn't going to work at first. The beans didn't seem to be absorbing the butter very well and there was this weird kind of butter-and-bean-juice sort of sludge hovering around, but once I added 1/3 cup of chicken broth it finally came together. I reduce the recipe to suit 1 can of pinto beans, since there's just the two of us, but if you're really all about the beans or you have a large family do the 3 cans. It seems like it would be an insane amount of beans but it's actually not - splitting one can in half yields just about enough to fill one of these 6-oz custard cups. In the end, I thought they were every bit as good with a change in seasoning, and using reduced sodium beans and chicken broth didn't seem to alter the flavor at all. I did add a tiny bit of salt, but it was a tiny round perhaps the circumference of a pea in my hand, and it honestly would have done fine without.
I also made Mexican Rice, which Chris said tasted great. (For some reason by the time food was done I just wasn't in a rice mood, and I forgot to taste it anyway.) This time the Kroger brand of tomato sauce won over the Hunt's, despite being much lower sodium - 280 mg in 1/4 cup as opposed to 410 in the same amount of the Hunt's. We tasted both and the latter tasted MUCH too salty to us - so either it's just excessively salty in general, or we're starting to get used to this. As one commenter recommended I softened up the onion in the oil first before I added the rice to brown, and like everyone else my rice didn't even come close to "puffing" while browning. I also added about 1 and 1/2 tsp of the taco seasoning at the end of the browning, just before I added in the chicken broth and tomato paste.
Now with all that chicken broth running around here, this may not really be the lowest sodium thing ever, but that was really the only source of sodium in any of it aside from the tomato paste. Well, and whatever amount of cheese went on the tacos. And the beans. But still it wasn't too bad, and there were no complaints so I think this is going in the save box.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Spaghetti Sauce
This is one that I'm still working on, since I've only made it once. And I'll admit, the first attempt was almost inedible, but I don't think it had much to do with the recipe... but let's start with that!
Spaghetti Sauce Mix. Usually I just use the Lawry's brand seasoning packets when I make spaghetti sauce, but as with everything else, any pre-made packaged mix like that will probably have a lot of salt. In this case, the nutrition facts say a whopping 600 mg per 1.5 tbsp (from here on out I'll try to include the actual listed sodium content with a link when I can, rather than just pulling numbers from memory). I'm not sure if that means cry or prepared - I'm guessing prepared as directed. And when you keep in mind that a general goal for a low-sodium diet is between 1,000 mg and 1,500 mg? That's a LOT of sodium in just a tiny bit of sauce.
When I started comparing tomato paste at the grocery store, I was surprised. The Kroger store brand has 20 mg per 2 tbsp, while the Hunt's has 105 mg for the same amount. Memory failed me here because we'd tried that tomato paste before and hated it, but my hamster-brain forgot and went "oh! this is a GREAT idea!" Yeah, maybe not so much.
I didn't have any Italian seasoning on hand - I considered getting it at the store, but I was already getting about 6 or 7 other various herbs and spices (minced garlic, minced onion, paprika, etc) so I was a little worried about the price. And Italian seasoning is pretty simple anyway - I already have oregano, thyme, basil and rosemary at home so I just tossed some of that into the mix, maybe a tsp each. Except rosemary, since it was incredibly resistant to being ground up in my hand... maybe one of these days I'll splurge and get a mortar and pestle! I'll fully admit that I have this thing about kitchen gadgets. I just love them, even if I have no real use for them, and even when I WOULD use them a lot I sometimes have a hard time actually buying them. So mortar and pestle goes on my wish list, along with a cast iron skillet. And a bigger kitchen.
I think the mix actually would be fine, but the tomato paste completely ruined the sauce. I tasted a tiny bit when I opened the can and immediately halved the amount of sugar that I put in the dry mix, but the sauce still came out too sweet. Not in a sugar way, but in a weird "maybe those tomatoes were a little off" kind of way. Rotten sweet. It took putting mozzarella cheese on it to make it even slightly palatable, and that's not a good solution. So I think next time I'll give this mix another shot but go back to the Hunt's tomato paste instead. It's still a ton less sodium than the Lawry's packet, and that's the important part.
Spaghetti Sauce Mix. Usually I just use the Lawry's brand seasoning packets when I make spaghetti sauce, but as with everything else, any pre-made packaged mix like that will probably have a lot of salt. In this case, the nutrition facts say a whopping 600 mg per 1.5 tbsp (from here on out I'll try to include the actual listed sodium content with a link when I can, rather than just pulling numbers from memory). I'm not sure if that means cry or prepared - I'm guessing prepared as directed. And when you keep in mind that a general goal for a low-sodium diet is between 1,000 mg and 1,500 mg? That's a LOT of sodium in just a tiny bit of sauce.
When I started comparing tomato paste at the grocery store, I was surprised. The Kroger store brand has 20 mg per 2 tbsp, while the Hunt's has 105 mg for the same amount. Memory failed me here because we'd tried that tomato paste before and hated it, but my hamster-brain forgot and went "oh! this is a GREAT idea!" Yeah, maybe not so much.
I didn't have any Italian seasoning on hand - I considered getting it at the store, but I was already getting about 6 or 7 other various herbs and spices (minced garlic, minced onion, paprika, etc) so I was a little worried about the price. And Italian seasoning is pretty simple anyway - I already have oregano, thyme, basil and rosemary at home so I just tossed some of that into the mix, maybe a tsp each. Except rosemary, since it was incredibly resistant to being ground up in my hand... maybe one of these days I'll splurge and get a mortar and pestle! I'll fully admit that I have this thing about kitchen gadgets. I just love them, even if I have no real use for them, and even when I WOULD use them a lot I sometimes have a hard time actually buying them. So mortar and pestle goes on my wish list, along with a cast iron skillet. And a bigger kitchen.
I think the mix actually would be fine, but the tomato paste completely ruined the sauce. I tasted a tiny bit when I opened the can and immediately halved the amount of sugar that I put in the dry mix, but the sauce still came out too sweet. Not in a sugar way, but in a weird "maybe those tomatoes were a little off" kind of way. Rotten sweet. It took putting mozzarella cheese on it to make it even slightly palatable, and that's not a good solution. So I think next time I'll give this mix another shot but go back to the Hunt's tomato paste instead. It's still a ton less sodium than the Lawry's packet, and that's the important part.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Pork and Potatoes
It looks like the blood pressure medication and our efforts to cut sodium are starting to pay off! Granted the blood pressure machines at the grocery stores are apparently a little dodgy (potentially ill-fitting cuffs, little calibration or maintenance, etc) but over the course of last night, our brand new home monitor was giving me a reading of about 118/75, and Chris a reading of about 128/80-ish, which is a vast improvement. Granted there's some debate among "experts" over what kind of at-home devices are best, and whether wrist or arm ones are more accurate, blah blah blah, but the point is that the numbers are pretty good.
But on to the cooking - with pictures this time! Sorry, I'm not exactly a pro photographer here, but at least it's an idea of how things should look, more or less.
First, we have Baked Pork Chops. First thing I changed here was the bread crumbs. Even in plain ones there's a lot of sodium, and there's even more in any seasoned ones. So after some debate, I ended up getting a box of Panko to try. They held up pretty well in meatballs, and despite the fact that it was a little more difficult to get them in a good layer on the chops they actually worked pretty well.
The key to this recipe is not to rush the browning part - just a little olive oil and get the breading nice and browned. You're not trying to actually cook the pork chops since they're going in the oven - this is just to set the coating. I always lightly spray the baking dish with a little bit of cooking spray to help the cleanup later. Generally, they look the same after the first hour of baking as they do straight out of the pan:
I'd picked up a can of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup for sodium restricted diets, but as soon as I popped open the can before I put the chops in the oven, I knew i had a problem. For one thing, well... the soup smelled awful. But for another, it was too runny. The soup is the main component in a kind of gravy-ish sauce that tops them, but once you mix in the milk and white wine, it gets kind of runny. I tried mixing it together anyway but it was definitely the wrong consistency, and the wine taste was much too strong. So while the chops were baking I dashed back to the store (no small feat considering that I take the bus) and grabbed two more cans of soup: Campbell's reduced sodium and Kroger brand lower calorie or fat or whatever it is that I've forgotten. It's a fair bit more sodium, but the Kroger brand ended up winning, and it's still less than regular cream of mushroom soup. Top the chops with the soup and bake for another half hour:
The thing to remember here is that you're not going to get a crispy-breaded pork chop out of this. They're going to soak up some of the soup and get soggy, but they taste amazing. But a lot of people reviewing the recipe seemed to want to ding it for being soggy, which makes me wonder if they understand what happens when you put bread in liquid. But those are probably the same ones who claim they made a recipe "exactly as-is, except I changed the spices, used beans instead of corn, and omitted the beef in this steak recipe." You laugh, but people do almost that exact thing.
To go with the pork chops, we obviously needed veggies. Since the frozen mashed potatoes have so much sodium but we still wanted some kind of potato, Chris suggested we try Cowboy Mashed Potatoes. I was a little hesitant at first because of the jalapeno, but it's really nothing to worry about. It wasn't spicy at all, and I have just about the lowest tolerance in the world for spicy stuff.
I used 4 small-ish red potatoes, 4 of the white potatoes that have the same kind of skin as red potatoes (whatever those are, they were just marked "white potatoes" at the store), 1 medium sized jalapeno and about 3/4 of a bag of baby carrots. I cut the potatoes into fairly small chunks, cut the baby carrots into thirds, and cut the jalapeno in half and then in slices. I minced the garlic a little; not too finely because I didn't want it slipping through the colander when it was drained. Once filled with water and on the stove, it looked like this:
Pretty, isn't it? I was a little worried about mashing the chunks of carrot and the corn but it ended up fine. A lot of the carrots stayed more or less together, and the mashed bits probably helped the flavor of the potatoes. I'll admit that I did add a dash of salt, but not as much as I would have before - maybe 1/16th of a teaspoon, if that much. It's a little easier to gauge how much you're using if you sprinkle it into your hand first. Mix in a little cheese and it's done! We decided to top them with some sour cream for flavor but I think they'd be fine without it if that's not your thing, and you could probably add more jalapeno if you prefer spicier food.
And the result? Again, sorry for the lousy picture, I should have turned on the overhead light first:
My only complaint about any of it was that the pork chops didn't re-heat as well as the ones I made with bread crumbs. We had a TON of potatoes left over, easily enough for another meal and probably one more serving after that.
But on to the cooking - with pictures this time! Sorry, I'm not exactly a pro photographer here, but at least it's an idea of how things should look, more or less.
First, we have Baked Pork Chops. First thing I changed here was the bread crumbs. Even in plain ones there's a lot of sodium, and there's even more in any seasoned ones. So after some debate, I ended up getting a box of Panko to try. They held up pretty well in meatballs, and despite the fact that it was a little more difficult to get them in a good layer on the chops they actually worked pretty well.
The key to this recipe is not to rush the browning part - just a little olive oil and get the breading nice and browned. You're not trying to actually cook the pork chops since they're going in the oven - this is just to set the coating. I always lightly spray the baking dish with a little bit of cooking spray to help the cleanup later. Generally, they look the same after the first hour of baking as they do straight out of the pan:
The thing to remember here is that you're not going to get a crispy-breaded pork chop out of this. They're going to soak up some of the soup and get soggy, but they taste amazing. But a lot of people reviewing the recipe seemed to want to ding it for being soggy, which makes me wonder if they understand what happens when you put bread in liquid. But those are probably the same ones who claim they made a recipe "exactly as-is, except I changed the spices, used beans instead of corn, and omitted the beef in this steak recipe." You laugh, but people do almost that exact thing.
To go with the pork chops, we obviously needed veggies. Since the frozen mashed potatoes have so much sodium but we still wanted some kind of potato, Chris suggested we try Cowboy Mashed Potatoes. I was a little hesitant at first because of the jalapeno, but it's really nothing to worry about. It wasn't spicy at all, and I have just about the lowest tolerance in the world for spicy stuff.
I used 4 small-ish red potatoes, 4 of the white potatoes that have the same kind of skin as red potatoes (whatever those are, they were just marked "white potatoes" at the store), 1 medium sized jalapeno and about 3/4 of a bag of baby carrots. I cut the potatoes into fairly small chunks, cut the baby carrots into thirds, and cut the jalapeno in half and then in slices. I minced the garlic a little; not too finely because I didn't want it slipping through the colander when it was drained. Once filled with water and on the stove, it looked like this:
Pretty, isn't it? I was a little worried about mashing the chunks of carrot and the corn but it ended up fine. A lot of the carrots stayed more or less together, and the mashed bits probably helped the flavor of the potatoes. I'll admit that I did add a dash of salt, but not as much as I would have before - maybe 1/16th of a teaspoon, if that much. It's a little easier to gauge how much you're using if you sprinkle it into your hand first. Mix in a little cheese and it's done! We decided to top them with some sour cream for flavor but I think they'd be fine without it if that's not your thing, and you could probably add more jalapeno if you prefer spicier food.
And the result? Again, sorry for the lousy picture, I should have turned on the overhead light first:
My only complaint about any of it was that the pork chops didn't re-heat as well as the ones I made with bread crumbs. We had a TON of potatoes left over, easily enough for another meal and probably one more serving after that.
Monday, October 10, 2011
High blood Pressure is a pain in the ass
Only three entries in and I already failed there for awhile! It's been one of those two weeks - me with a horrible case of being troll-social (talking to people? going anywhere? BAH) and Chris with a raging ear infection. Finally we broke down and went to the Walgreen's clinic to get some antibiotics for that and got a surprise bonus diagnosis - hypertension! When I took my blood pressure at the store while waiting for the prescriptions, I got a shock too - 151 systolic, which is the first number. Which is also classified as Stage 1 Hypertension. Granted that's probably not as accurate as the doctor's office, but accurate enough to worry me.
Now, the thing about both of us is... well, we try to eat healthy. Sometimes. But we both love food, and it definitely shows. Since a trip to the hospital due to a diverticulitis episode two years ago (which involved a week's stay for Chris) we've been a lot better about fiber, but that's about it. The truth is that neither one of us really know a lot about healthy eating. Sure, we know that making our own food is better than pizza and burgers, but the problem comes when we get down to what to actually eat? I come from a family that pretty much only really cooks when they HAVE to and has the disposable income to avoid it a lot of the time, and it was always viewed as a chore rather than an adventure - when I was in high school, I "had" to cook one meal a week. It was always spaghetti, always jarred sauce that I just added some frozen chopped onion and bell pepper to. Not exactly adventurous or healthy, if you've ever really looked at the back of those jars.
So thus begins our new adventure: trying to lower our sodium intake. Did you know that just one teaspoon of salt is your daily recommended value of sodium? (That's 2325 milligrams, for those counting.) And for anyone who's overweight or in the beginning stages of hypertension, and let's face it, that's a lot of us... that's too much sodium. Way too much. But sodium is in everything these days, in various forms. It's even in milk - I think the 1% that I get has 100 mg per 8 ozs. It doesn't seem like a lot but it starts adding up fast.
Now it's all about experimenting. The problem is that a lot of no-salt added things are, well, inedible. Maybe they'd work for you, I don't know, but for us, all of them tend to taste too sweet. Mind you I don't mind sweet, but I mean the sickly kind of sweet, like bread or fruit just on the other side of rotten. We're tried low-sodium bread, no-salt added veggies, lower sodium tomato paste, soup intended for sodium restricted diets, all with the same result. Sure, it's a great way to cut sodium - but only because we can't eat anything made with it. Blech! So now I'm going to start blogging something slightly different than what I'd originally intended: our efforts to slash our salt intake without making food completely unpalatable.
I've actually got pictures for some stuff I made last weekend, but I'll save those for tomorrow. Since I've already rambled extensively, here's a pretty easy one that I made last week: Taco Seasoning. I completely left out the salt and it tasted perfectly fine - just add 2 1/2 tbsp of the seasoning and 3/4 cup water to 1 lb of browned hamburger meat or cubed cooked chicken.
You'll have to check your chili powder to make sure that there's no sodium in it, but this mixture is great. We really couldn't tell much of a difference between this and the store-bought packet, and we saved about 300 mg of sodium per serving by not using that. Low-sodium tortillas are fairly hard to come by so I went for low carb ones instead, which packed a surprising 9g of fiber per tortilla. And at 180 mg of sodium per serving, they weren't a deal breaker. Keep in mind that SOME sodium is good for you - actually, too little is bad as well. A doctor can give you a more definite number as far as a minimum is concerned. One note of warning: if you don't have health insurance, like Chris, the Walgreen's Take Care Clinic is an option, but apparently they're phasing out treatment for high blood pressure. They'll tell you if it's too high, but they won't prescribe medication for it anymore. Fortunately they referred us to a great clinic just across the parking lot, but it still could be bothersome. Also, you can buy blood pressure monitors on Amazon for pretty cheap, so that's another option.
We've only been at this cutting sodium thing a week, and when I re-tested my blood pressure at the grocery store, my systolic was down to 142. Here's to hoping that was a good sign and not just a fluke!
Now, the thing about both of us is... well, we try to eat healthy. Sometimes. But we both love food, and it definitely shows. Since a trip to the hospital due to a diverticulitis episode two years ago (which involved a week's stay for Chris) we've been a lot better about fiber, but that's about it. The truth is that neither one of us really know a lot about healthy eating. Sure, we know that making our own food is better than pizza and burgers, but the problem comes when we get down to what to actually eat? I come from a family that pretty much only really cooks when they HAVE to and has the disposable income to avoid it a lot of the time, and it was always viewed as a chore rather than an adventure - when I was in high school, I "had" to cook one meal a week. It was always spaghetti, always jarred sauce that I just added some frozen chopped onion and bell pepper to. Not exactly adventurous or healthy, if you've ever really looked at the back of those jars.
So thus begins our new adventure: trying to lower our sodium intake. Did you know that just one teaspoon of salt is your daily recommended value of sodium? (That's 2325 milligrams, for those counting.) And for anyone who's overweight or in the beginning stages of hypertension, and let's face it, that's a lot of us... that's too much sodium. Way too much. But sodium is in everything these days, in various forms. It's even in milk - I think the 1% that I get has 100 mg per 8 ozs. It doesn't seem like a lot but it starts adding up fast.
Now it's all about experimenting. The problem is that a lot of no-salt added things are, well, inedible. Maybe they'd work for you, I don't know, but for us, all of them tend to taste too sweet. Mind you I don't mind sweet, but I mean the sickly kind of sweet, like bread or fruit just on the other side of rotten. We're tried low-sodium bread, no-salt added veggies, lower sodium tomato paste, soup intended for sodium restricted diets, all with the same result. Sure, it's a great way to cut sodium - but only because we can't eat anything made with it. Blech! So now I'm going to start blogging something slightly different than what I'd originally intended: our efforts to slash our salt intake without making food completely unpalatable.
I've actually got pictures for some stuff I made last weekend, but I'll save those for tomorrow. Since I've already rambled extensively, here's a pretty easy one that I made last week: Taco Seasoning. I completely left out the salt and it tasted perfectly fine - just add 2 1/2 tbsp of the seasoning and 3/4 cup water to 1 lb of browned hamburger meat or cubed cooked chicken.
You'll have to check your chili powder to make sure that there's no sodium in it, but this mixture is great. We really couldn't tell much of a difference between this and the store-bought packet, and we saved about 300 mg of sodium per serving by not using that. Low-sodium tortillas are fairly hard to come by so I went for low carb ones instead, which packed a surprising 9g of fiber per tortilla. And at 180 mg of sodium per serving, they weren't a deal breaker. Keep in mind that SOME sodium is good for you - actually, too little is bad as well. A doctor can give you a more definite number as far as a minimum is concerned. One note of warning: if you don't have health insurance, like Chris, the Walgreen's Take Care Clinic is an option, but apparently they're phasing out treatment for high blood pressure. They'll tell you if it's too high, but they won't prescribe medication for it anymore. Fortunately they referred us to a great clinic just across the parking lot, but it still could be bothersome. Also, you can buy blood pressure monitors on Amazon for pretty cheap, so that's another option.
We've only been at this cutting sodium thing a week, and when I re-tested my blood pressure at the grocery store, my systolic was down to 142. Here's to hoping that was a good sign and not just a fluke!
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Beans, Beans, Beans
This is cheating just a little, because it's not something I made last night, but rather last weekend. Chris wanted to have tacos out of the frozen fish planks we got, and I had some frozen shrip so I figured what the hell.
The problem with tacos of any kind is that we always pine for those tasty refried beans you get at Mexican restaurants. The canned beans at the store are a poor imitation, maybe it's something to do with the shelf stability. Of course for all I know those are actually what restaurants use and I'm just swayed by the fancy serving (styrofoam bowls at Taco Bell are totally fancy, right?)
So I decided to try making my own, using a slightly modified version of Buffy's Refried Beans, adding 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp cumin, and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper.
Since I wasn't sure about shelf-stable lard from the store I just bought a package of bacon and saved the drippings. I wasn't paying attention when I bought it and didn't notice it wasn't sugar cured, and damn it was salty. Or at least I thought it was. Looking at the recipe, I thought 3 cans of beans was excessive, so I divided it into thirds. Won't do that again - it was barely enough for two since we both love beans!
I used about 3 tablespoons of the bacon grease, which was pretty much all of it, and I also added a little drizzle of vegetable oil just to make sure there was enough. I think oil or butter would be okay to make up if there wasn't quite enough of the drippings left over, but I'd be a little hesitant about using only those. They'd probably do in a pinch though.
No extra salt because of the salt level of the bacon, and I tasted them once and thought "bah! too bland! more cayenne pepper!" Naturally, my careful efforts to just add a tiny sprinkle more were dashed when a clump dislodged. Scooping out the excess didn't go as well as I thought, because those beans were HOT. Definitely hotter than they tasted at first, and long after dinner was finished my mouth was still on fire. Being from Texas failed to bless me with some kind of superhuman ability to tolerate spicy shit, but that didn't stop me from eating all of the beans. Tasty! Definitly will make those again... two cans at a time instead of just one.
The problem with tacos of any kind is that we always pine for those tasty refried beans you get at Mexican restaurants. The canned beans at the store are a poor imitation, maybe it's something to do with the shelf stability. Of course for all I know those are actually what restaurants use and I'm just swayed by the fancy serving (styrofoam bowls at Taco Bell are totally fancy, right?)
So I decided to try making my own, using a slightly modified version of Buffy's Refried Beans, adding 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp cumin, and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper.
Since I wasn't sure about shelf-stable lard from the store I just bought a package of bacon and saved the drippings. I wasn't paying attention when I bought it and didn't notice it wasn't sugar cured, and damn it was salty. Or at least I thought it was. Looking at the recipe, I thought 3 cans of beans was excessive, so I divided it into thirds. Won't do that again - it was barely enough for two since we both love beans!
I used about 3 tablespoons of the bacon grease, which was pretty much all of it, and I also added a little drizzle of vegetable oil just to make sure there was enough. I think oil or butter would be okay to make up if there wasn't quite enough of the drippings left over, but I'd be a little hesitant about using only those. They'd probably do in a pinch though.
No extra salt because of the salt level of the bacon, and I tasted them once and thought "bah! too bland! more cayenne pepper!" Naturally, my careful efforts to just add a tiny sprinkle more were dashed when a clump dislodged. Scooping out the excess didn't go as well as I thought, because those beans were HOT. Definitely hotter than they tasted at first, and long after dinner was finished my mouth was still on fire. Being from Texas failed to bless me with some kind of superhuman ability to tolerate spicy shit, but that didn't stop me from eating all of the beans. Tasty! Definitly will make those again... two cans at a time instead of just one.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
First real entry and I'm already failing.
Weekend before last, I actually went wild cooking. Pot roast one night, baked pork chops with a white wine and cream of mushroom sauce, baked ziti rigatoni, and other stuff I've forgotten. But now, as previously discussed, I've forgotten what I did and didn't like about those recipes, so I'll have to come back to them again later. It was mostly tasty, though.
If I were to write a letter to my 15 year old self, I'd tell myself to start trying to cook and promise myself that I'd enjoy it more than I'd think. And that, for a woman who once neglected to take a frozen pizza off the cardboard before baking, I'm surprisingly good at it when I pay attention to what I'm doing. The trick is paying attention, because I have almost no attention span. Only the imminent threat of things boiling over or burning down the apartment keeps me on track (let's not talk about the time I wandered off and left the water running, filling the sink for dishes. The sink didn't overflow and that's all that matters).
Anyway, last weekend we were having BBQ chicken - simplified with the helpful suggestion of "why don't you just use bottled BBQ sauce?" That's easy as shit - thaw chicken breasts, season with whatever you like on chicken (garlic powder, Mrs. Dash and maybe a little onion powder for us, since I try not to use salt if I can help it). Lightly spray a baking dish with cooking spray, cover with foil and bake chicken breasts 20 minutes at 350. Remove, drain any fat, cover liberally with sauce, and bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes. This was highly simplified, considering that I was trying to make my own sauce too. Maybe another time... although sometimes it's not worth the trouble.
Some kind of potatoes were wanted, but not regular mashed potatoes, so we decided to try Cheesy Potato Bake instead. I should have read the comments, because they were right about it being runny. Of course, I made them the cheater's way - I used a bag of microwave mashed potatoes. Those always work better for me if I smash them up first, and I usually use my giant serving fork before I take after them with a hand mixer. Sure I could buy a potato masher, but I always forget. My grandmother swears that potatoes will do something weird if you beat them too long (get sticky, maybe? turn into wallpaper paste? cthulu-mogrify themselves?) but I've yet to manage to ruin a batch of them. Not for lack of beating, either.
That being said, I shouldn't have measured out 3 cups. Stick to the whole bag, and gradually add the cheddar cheese soup until it hits a consistency you like. This dish will NOT thicken as it bakes. The top gets browned slightly, yes, but underneath it will be as runny as a new tie-dyed shirt (ask me later about the time a Christmas gift turned me into a smurf). Letting it sit a few minutes in a bowl before eating helps some, but even then it's kind of like really thick mashed potato soup. It is, however, really really good. I'll admit that I didn't even cut up the green onions with a knife. I washed a bunch and then went after them with freshly-washed kitchen scissors because I didn't want to drag out a cutting board. Hey, I never claimed these were going to be any kind of pro cooking tips here, so feel free to skip over any potentially failure-from-the-Health-Board stuff I might unwittingly be doing. Neither of us have gotten food poisoning or brain worms from pork yet, so I figure we're okay.
If I were to write a letter to my 15 year old self, I'd tell myself to start trying to cook and promise myself that I'd enjoy it more than I'd think. And that, for a woman who once neglected to take a frozen pizza off the cardboard before baking, I'm surprisingly good at it when I pay attention to what I'm doing. The trick is paying attention, because I have almost no attention span. Only the imminent threat of things boiling over or burning down the apartment keeps me on track (let's not talk about the time I wandered off and left the water running, filling the sink for dishes. The sink didn't overflow and that's all that matters).
Anyway, last weekend we were having BBQ chicken - simplified with the helpful suggestion of "why don't you just use bottled BBQ sauce?" That's easy as shit - thaw chicken breasts, season with whatever you like on chicken (garlic powder, Mrs. Dash and maybe a little onion powder for us, since I try not to use salt if I can help it). Lightly spray a baking dish with cooking spray, cover with foil and bake chicken breasts 20 minutes at 350. Remove, drain any fat, cover liberally with sauce, and bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes. This was highly simplified, considering that I was trying to make my own sauce too. Maybe another time... although sometimes it's not worth the trouble.
Some kind of potatoes were wanted, but not regular mashed potatoes, so we decided to try Cheesy Potato Bake instead. I should have read the comments, because they were right about it being runny. Of course, I made them the cheater's way - I used a bag of microwave mashed potatoes. Those always work better for me if I smash them up first, and I usually use my giant serving fork before I take after them with a hand mixer. Sure I could buy a potato masher, but I always forget. My grandmother swears that potatoes will do something weird if you beat them too long (get sticky, maybe? turn into wallpaper paste? cthulu-mogrify themselves?) but I've yet to manage to ruin a batch of them. Not for lack of beating, either.
That being said, I shouldn't have measured out 3 cups. Stick to the whole bag, and gradually add the cheddar cheese soup until it hits a consistency you like. This dish will NOT thicken as it bakes. The top gets browned slightly, yes, but underneath it will be as runny as a new tie-dyed shirt (ask me later about the time a Christmas gift turned me into a smurf). Letting it sit a few minutes in a bowl before eating helps some, but even then it's kind of like really thick mashed potato soup. It is, however, really really good. I'll admit that I didn't even cut up the green onions with a knife. I washed a bunch and then went after them with freshly-washed kitchen scissors because I didn't want to drag out a cutting board. Hey, I never claimed these were going to be any kind of pro cooking tips here, so feel free to skip over any potentially failure-from-the-Health-Board stuff I might unwittingly be doing. Neither of us have gotten food poisoning or brain worms from pork yet, so I figure we're okay.
Every New Beginning
Here we go.
I'm starting this blog as a way to keep track of a new project, and also as a way to pass the time until a big event. See, in... 80-something-too-many-days, my partner and I are taking my mother-in-law to Walt Disney World. It's the first ever trip for them, and the first for me when I'll be old and (hopefully) coherent enough to remember.
I went once with my parents when I was maybe... 7? 8? I'm not sure how old I was at the time, partially because my memory is horrible in general, and partially because I was too busy looking for coins the entire time. Seriously. We were there... a few days, I'm guessing? I remember riding It's A Small World until my dad refused to go anymore, I vaguely remember Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I got violently ill from a ride that involved a round projection dome and possibly hang gliding? Although maybe my memory is fucking with me and that was somewhere else. My memory is a bitch like that, but I remember sitting on the floor with my head buried in my knees. Mortifyingly, I do clearly remember saying that the day had been AWESOME, not because of the rides, but because I found almost a dollar in change. To be honest, I'm surprised my parents didn't sell me to Disney to be bolted into place in It's A Small World. Those aren't robots. They're real brainwashed mechazombies. True story.
We're also going to go up to the Georgia Aquarium. Because they have whale sharks. And I cannot tell you how much I need to see whale sharks. Seriously. It's on my bucket list, right below petting a Galapagos giant tortoise while actually in the Galapagos, which I scratched off while in college.
Needless to say, I'm excited. We're all excited. I've printed up screenshots of Google maps for directions and hotels along the way. I've mapped out and gotten directions to gas stations. I've calculated distances between towns so I know how far away the next toilet probably is. I've located non-Houston-available places that we want to eat while we're on the trip. I'm having to forcibly stop myself from inventing more things just so I can map and print them out of sheer need to do something in order to distract my brain.
Which is where this blog comes in.
Recently, in a fit of boredom with our usual rotation of meals, we had a discussion about how bored we were with all of our normal vegetables. Countless hours later I was still on allrecipes.com, gleefully throwing things into my recipe box and crowing things like "ZUCCHINI! Ooh, look, I could make my own bbq sauce. Mmm, stew..."
I'm sure that got old fast, but bless Chris for just making the appropriate yummy noises and ignoring my ranting until I actually started making sense. Except when suddenly there was yelling about how I'd been swearing I was going to make stew for years and there still wasn't any fucking stew (got me there, and we still don't have any, but only because 100 degree weather is not stew weather and I am totally going to make stew this fall, shut up). Unlike all the other times I've claimed that I was going to start cooking, though, I actually did this time. Some of the stuff went well, some of it didn't. The problem? I'll never remember what I thought "huh, I need to change xyz later, and next time I need to cook z first because that was done WAY too early" about unless I write it down.
Maybe I'll take pictures of the food eventually, though my disaster of a kitchen post-cooking might keep me from doing that. Or maybe it'll encourage me to clean up more often! (Yeah right.) Regardless, I'm trying to cook one new thing at least every weekend. I'm not trying to Julie my way through the Julia Child cookbook or anything. There will be no pot-popping lobster boiling going on in my kitchen, mostly because the biggest things I can bring myself to kill are roaches and I totally don't have a pot big enough for lobsters anyway, plus I ride the bus home from work. And while you can take animals on the bus, provided that they're properly contained or serviced (service dogs, you pervert)... I can't imagine that they'd be thrilled about me bringing on a bag of lobsters. Bag? Box? Whatever. But what a conversation starter THAT would be!
And now you know why I called this blog Cooking Inanity. Maybe I should have called it cooking rambling instead...
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