Low/No Sodium But Still Tasty?

My kids laugh at me because I save EVERYTHING, from bones to carrot tops and tips, left over veggies, everything. Because I like to make soup. And I like to make my own stock. And all those bits go into my pot and (usually) a reasonably tasty brew usually results.

I roasted a turkey Saturday. We love turkey. And since we're not hosting Thanksgiving this year we won't be swimming in leftovers. Anyway, I tried something different and cut the bird up like a chicken and put it in the oven. Not sure I love the results of this method, but it sure cooked faster!

Anyway, the wings, back, innards and neck all went into the stock pot yesterday with a whole unpeeled onion, a whole head of garlic (broken up but unpeeled), five carrots broken in pieces, half a bunch of celery (including the bottom core), four bay leaves, four big sprigs of fresh rosemary, a handfull of fresh thyme sprigs and a partridge in a pear tree. And the cores of some oyster mushrooms. I added water and just let it simmer all day. Ended up with three and a half quarts of some REALLY tasty stock!

Relatively free and no salt. Easy as heck. When I use it I adjust the seasonings (might add some red pepper flakes, or whatever, depending on the application). It's very versatile. So my kids can laugh all they want. I have homemade stock!

There are two questions I have to answer every single work day: Where are we having lunch and, more importantly, What am I making for dinner?

The first question is usually a collaborative effort between me, our office administrator Danielle and our company's President, Hashmi. One would think we'd just defer to our boss, and sometimes we do, but most often it's Danielle and I brainstorming. We just tell Hashmi what he's having for lunch. We rarely pick burgers. More often it's Thai, bbq or Mexican.

Question Two, however, is almost always on me. I know what Jim likes (and what he doesn't) so I pretty much have a wide open field of choices. And he's open to try new things, which is great. There are two caveats: Low Salt and Little or No Meat.

We decided that, if we want meat, we'll have it for lunch. I am much more of a carnivore than Jim is so I eat meat just about every day.

Last night I was pretty tired. I knew I had a bag of split green peas in the cupboard, some carrots in the fridge, and an onion and some garlic and potatoes in the basket. Sounds like pea soup to me!

I stopped at Fresh & Easy (my FAV store) on the way home and picked up two quarts of their store brand low sodium chicken stock. It's really tasty and is truly low sodium, with only a little more than 100 mg per cup. That's so much lower than every other prepared chicken stock.

So I sauteed the chopped onion and carrots in a little canola and added about 3 cloves of chopped garlic. Added a few bay leaves, some rosemary, tarragon and a little dill. And a pinch of red pepper flakes. Then the stock, and when that got hot, the peas. That's all. Let it simmer for about an hour, then added some cubed potatoes.

I thought I'd be all clever and cubed up some 12 grain bread, drizzled it with oil and put it in the oven to make some croutons. Burned em. Tragic.

The cool part is that Jim got home right as the potatoes got tender. He loved it!!! And the only sodium in the whole pot of soup was in the stock. I added salt and ground black pepper to mine. And loved it.

Dinner tonight? Left over soup with a little salsa verde added. Yummy!!!

My husband has always had to watch his blood pressure and is VERY sensitive to salt. So what does a girl who loves to cook do with food when she can't use salt?

I love Indian/Pakistani food, and I know that the flavors don't depend on a lot of salt to punch them up. So I decided to go for it and play around with those spices.

Right now I am experimenting with garam masala and the different components therein. The flavors are wonderfully pungent with no heat and can be used with meat, vegetables, rice or potatoes. My husband likes it, so that is a big green light for me!

I started out with the premixed brand sold at Fresh & Easy. It's good, but I know that working with whole spices would be so much better. I have the curry episode of Good Eats saved on our DVR, have tons of websites bookmarked, and I am assembling the spices bit by bit. It can be expensive, depending on where one buys the spices. My local Ralphs and Fresh & Easy will do just fine, unless I get serious about this cuisine and visit some of the local Indian markets. Which I may do anyway, just to learn.

One of the dishes in which I most commonly use this spice blend is roasted potatoes. No magic, I just cut up potatoes and toss them in a little olive oil and put on a baking sheet then sprinkle with the spices. An hour later at 350° and they're done. And yummy. No salt. And the aroma from the oven while the potatoes are roasting is just heavenly.

At Christmas I make creamed pearl onions (decidedly NOT heart healthy, by the way) and have always used grated fresh nutmeg to set off the flavors. This year I am going to use the masala blend. Now THAT is going to be good!

Resources that have been helpful to me include:

http://indianfood.about.com/od/masalarecipes/r/garammasala.htm

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Kashmiri-Garam-Masala/Detail.aspx

Another spice I like to use for roasting potatoes or vegetables is tumeric. It has a big punch of flavor, no heat, and gives food a beautiful yellow color. The Indian, Pakistani and Nepalese engineers I work with bring lunch to work every day and there is almost always a vegetable dish comprised of potatoes, beans, broccoli, mushrooms, etc. cooked with tumeric. And it's delicious.

Any ideas you might have, experience with what works and what doesn't, please share!