Cooking the Low Salt Way

Mostly low sodium Margherita Pizza

Go read rhe recipe for whole wheat cornmeal crust and make one of those first if you haven’t already.  While the dough is rising you can work on the part below which is also time consuming.

This pizza is sauceless – but you’d never know it.  The rich tomato flavor completely tastes like sauce once it’s cooked.  It just doesn’t use actual tomato sauce.  Instead it uses a lot of tomatoes.

Ingredients

You’re going to need the following:

• 2 cups peeled, seeded, and diced tomatoes – to peel a tomato drop it in boiling water for 45 seconds or until the skin cracks.  Remove it and let cool for a minute or two.  Then peel it, remove the stem section, and seed it.  Then finally chop it into small (1/4″ or less) size chunks.  This step takes forever.  Do it though – it’s worth it.
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• Fresh basil (NOT the stuff in a jar.  Ever.)
• 1/4 cup chopped red onion
• 8 oz package part skim mozzerella (1404 mg sodium total, 175.5 mg/serving)
• Optional: Choose your meat – low sodium is best obviously

Directions

1. After chopping the tomatoes put them in a strainer and let sit for 15 minutes
2. Put two tablespoons olive oil in a large bowl
3. Use a garlic presh or very finely chop the garlic and put in the olive oil
4. Chop fresh basil – I usually do quite a bit (1/4 cup chopped) – and add to the bowl.
5. Add the tomatoes to the bowl and mix well
6. When the crust is pressed into a pan and ready to go spread half of the cheese on top of the crust
7. Layer 1/2 of the tomato mixture onto the cheese
8. Do another layer of cheese
9. Spread the remaining tomato mixture
10. Bake at 425 degree F for up to 30 minutes.  Take out when the cheese is browning.

That’s it – and it’s very good.   As a final noate – use steps 1-5 above to make the perfect bruschetta topping.

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Low sodium pizza crust? Really?

Actually – yes.  And it tastes good too.  Pizza is awesome but it is obnoxious when it comes to sodium content.  The crust itself is a bad offender usually.

Because of that this recipe took forever to come up with.  My wife and I tried a zillion store-brand pizza crusts that were low sodium and they all sucked.  So we quit that method and just started going for regular crust recipes.  It finally worked out one day.

This is not fast – but it is worth it.  It’s also not super-low in sodium and there’s a reason for that.  Anytime you have yeast to leaven bread you also need salt.  Salt prevents yeast from reproducing too rapidly and dying off.  Conversely, too much salt kills the yeast and prevents it from ever spreading.

Moving on…let’s make some crust.

Ingredients:

• 1 envelope dry yeast
• 3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees – measure it)
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (yikes! – but divide by 8 pieces of pizza = 150 mg/serving)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Directions

1. Dissolve the yeast in the water – let stand for 5 minutes and get “creamy”
2. Mix the flour, cornmeal, and salt in a bowl.
3. Add the olive oil and yeast+water mixture
4. Mix until a soft ball forms
5. Dust your hands with flour – and the countertop.
6. Turn the ball out on the counter and knead for 5-10 minutes or until the texture is very consistent.
7. Using olive oil lightly oil a bowl 2 or 3 times larger than the ball of dough.
8. Place the dough in the bowl and cover with saran wrap

The dough ball then has to sit for 1 1/2 to 2 hours until it doubles in size.  Then spread it on your favorite pizza pan and let it rise again for a few minutes.  I usually let it rise in a very slightly warm oven for this step.  To do this set your oven at 350 and turn it on.  Turn it off after 3 minutes (regardless of it’s temp) and put the crust + pan inside to rise.  The oven should not be hotter than 120 degrees F.

My next post will give a great way to use this recipe.

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Fiery Lime Shrimp

Shrimp  are pretty low in sodium – 3 ounces of steamed (or otherwise not-salty cooked) shrimp only have 170mg of sodium.

Shrimp typically come in a 2-pound bag with varying sizes.  26-30 is very typical means they are just under 1 ounce each.  Consider 4 shrimp in this size as a serving.

Shrimp can be awfully bland without salt - but that’s easy to fix.

Here’s a recipe I like – feel free to mix up the pepper for your taste buds:

Ingredients:

• 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 dozen small shrimp, pre-cooked
• 3 skewers (presoaked)

Directions:

1. Juice the limes
2. Add the olive oil
3. Choose a dry pepper powder: Table pepper for mild, fresh ground pepper for slightly spice, chili pepper for slighly spicy, crushed red pepper for more spicy….on up to whatever your taste tolerance is.  Mix in 1 teaspoon.
4. Mix well – place the shrimp in a shallow dish and marinate for 30 minutes.  Reserve the marinade.
5. Grill on a hot grill for 2-3 minutes per side.  Brush with the remaining marinade just before final turning

Enjoy! 1 skewer = 2 servings = 340 mg of salt.

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Low sodium taquitos

If you have to eat low-sodium/salt food because of health reasons you’ll quickly discover that the VAST majority of junk food/comfort food is no longer your friend.

There’s no way around that unfortunately – but there are occassional snacks you can make that are not terribly bad for you – like these low-sodium taquitos.

Recipe Summary:

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups frozen mix veggies – I prefer the peas, carrots, and corn mix
• 1/3 cup crumbled queso anejo or Monterey Jack cheese (shredded)
• 12 corn tortillas (small), warmed 2 tsp olive oil
• 2 cups fresh salsa (made from scratch – no salt!)
• 1/2 avocado, chopped (I like big chunks – you can do whatever you want of course)

Directions:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 450 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, mix vegetables and cheese.
3. Spoon 1/4 cup vegetable and cheese mixture down the center of each tortilla.
4. Roll up tightly. Place taquitos on a baking sheet.
5. Brush each Taquito lightly with oil. Bake until crispy, about 7 to 10 minutes.
6. While taquitos are baking, mix fresh salsa with avocado – I like big chunks -
7. Spoon salsa mixture over each serving of taquitos.

Serve and enjoy.  These have about 360 calories per serving (3 of these = 1 serving) and 230 mg of sodium – but make sure you compare the tortillas when you go shopping.  They are NOT all made equal.  Some have an atrocious amount of salt.

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