theothergretchen's Profile

If you have only one low-salt family member you might also want to supplement salt for the other family members. My husband went on a low-salt diet for high blood pressure (he has the variety that is affected by salt) but I actually tend to have low-normal blood pressure and I don't want it to get lower than that. So what I do is cook low-salt and then sprinkle a little extra onto my own food.

I find dry dill weed to be a reasonable seasoning in place of some or all salt, and amping up the ground black pepper a bit. He's not salt-free so I do have more leeway; we mostly got his sodium intake down by moving entirely to cooking from scratch, even using homemade broths; we can season to my taste that way and he's still low-salt compared to how most people eat.

I like making salmon salad using Greek yogurt and a little lemon juice or vinegar instead of mayo, plus preserved lemon and/or capers and red onion or shallots or green onions.

Freeze everything you won't eat in a day or so, and a day or two's worth on the counter, covered but not airtight. This works pretty well unless you live somewhere very mold-friendly, and is a good way to hold a decent crust.

The freezer is very friendly to baked goods, especially things that you'll want to pop into a toaster later, or can eat warmed. Just make sure to slice it first so you can take out one piece at a time, and fan the slices while freezing if they're moist, so they don't stick to each other. Once it's frozen you can let them touch again. Then seal tightly.

I used to hate a lot of foods but surprisingly I like or even love most of them now. Lentils, asparagus, almost every kind of egg that wasn't part of a batter.... zucchini. The lentils and zucchini were because we had a phase where it was all we ate when I was a kid, and the lentils made me sick. Around age 12 I could eat lentils again, though. I had to be an adult before I could eat zucchini with enthusiasm again, and my husband, who had a similar upbringing, still only eats zucchini because he has to. One year I dyed too many easter eggs, which made hard boiled eggs inedible until just a year or two ago. (Now I can eat them in things, but not plain.)

What I still hate:

* Canned peas. What a terrible thing to do to an innocent vegetable.
* Sea urchin roe. I've had a good presentation of this combined with salmon skin to take care of the textural issues, but on its own it is too strong tasting and has a texture that I can't deal with.
* Aspic. I like sweet-flavored gelatin and I like a good bone stock, but a layer of aspic on anything ... ugh.
* Most soft lunch meats like bologna, though weirdly I do like bologna with mayo and tomato. I can't eat it plain though.

I have a bunch of food allergies and intolerances, but sadly they are to things I mostly like. I have been known to eat a few melons every summer until the reactions have ramped up to the point where it just seems unwise. I tried cooking a melon I was only a little way through when I hit my limit, but cooking it turned out to not deactivate the reaction. However it is the only way my husband will enjoy melon (he loathes melon and "big slabs of meat" and any fish which might have bones, all for textural reasons), so it was a win. (I cooked it into a crisp, using nutmeg and vanilla rather than cinnamon, and it worked out surprisingly well.)

I like how snack-sized red bananas are, and their lovely flavor. They're also dramatic if you cut them into coins leaving the peel on. About the only con is it's a little harder to tell when they're ripe.

I've done this informally by adding a date or two to a cup of hot cocoa, and then whirring with an immersion blender. If you want it to be really smooth then run it through a strainer afterwards.

I like it all sorts of ways; it's not as peppery as standard mustard greens so it goes into more things and can be used as a garnish/accent as well as a main ingredient.

It's a good soup ingredient: I make a lot of veggie soups using leeks or onions, a green vegetable, and a starchy vegetable. My favorite combination with mizuna is sweet potato (preferably Japanese sweet potato, but anything works) and onion.

It also holds up a better than lettuce so it's good in salads that need to keep for a few hours or even overnight. I sometimes add it or radish greens to pickled cucumbers. It's good in potato salad, too.

I don't eat much bread lately but I'm thinking of getting a toaster oven; my oven takes a long time to pre-heat and it seems wasteful for small jobs. A toaster oven would let me do small baking/toasting jobs plus the occasional toast plus warming some foods up more efficiently.

I unplugged the toaster before going on a trip a month ago and it's still not plugged in, so I can definitely live without it! The rice cooker always gets plugged back within a week.

I gave away my food processor recently, though that was made easier by the fact that my immersion blender has a small food processor attachment. It is MUCH easier to clean than the food processor was, so it's perfect. It also has a hand mixer attachment. On the other hand, I made pesto with a knife today, so I use the immersion blender for its primary use a lot more than I use the extra attachments.

If I baked all the time I would consider a stand mixer, but I don't.

I'm working on being more microwave free, but I do still like it for reheating some foods, and it's very good for if I forgot to cook rice or bake tubers for a meal (an all-too-common problem!) the quick fix there is to either use the microwave to reheat some frozen rice, or to pop a sweet potato in for a few minutes. When I'm actually on top of my planning I thaw things slowly in the fridge ahead of time, and re-heat on the stovetop or in a low oven, but rice dries out using those methods unless I use a steamer, which is fussier than just popping it into the microwave.

I'd love to find a guaranteed citrus sourced citric acid, as it can be produced from both corn and soy as well as fruit, and I have a corn allergy and have a friend with a severe soy allergy. There are enough trace proteins remaining in soy/corn based citric acid to trigger reactions in the most sensitive of us, so it's a shame that the source material isn't required in the labeling.

Fir, pine, and spruce needles are edible, and Douglas fir needles (I'm not sure if they grow in Seattle) taste quite lemony to me -- they're also a great source of vitamin C. I haven't tried spruce but spruce tea is a common use. Not a great sub in quantity but might be an interesting variation for a bright zing of flavor. Also make sure you can ID them well as while those conifers are edible, yew is not. And don't sample Christmas trees unless you know they haven't been sprayed with flame retardant or something yucky.

I also use vinegar or sometimes white wine for some of the same uses as lemon juice; I like the idea of using verjus a lot since it has a lovely bright sour flavor. I know there's a strain of Washington oranges, too, so you might be able to sub with those for some recipes.

I live in Northern California and wouldn't try to eat entirely locally. I'm very happy to eat mostly from local farmers, including my meats, eggs, and milk, but I also really love black pepper and tea from China and India. I tried to eat aggressively local this winter but I did eat a pear or two from Washington when I got tired of a wall of citrus, as well as a few bananas, and my dates, cherimoyas, and mangos, while California grown... well they're well outside the 100 mile radius. Importing food is a VERY old practice, with spices traveling thousands of miles along the Silk Road being very important in medieval Europe.

I try to practice eating very mindfully, and I try to make my staples either local or fair trade if they're imported. I also prefer imported foods that are not so perishable that they can't be shipped efficiently and slowly.

Regarding Michael Pollan's rule, like most simplifications including the 100 mile rule, it's flawed if you adhere to it rigidly and mindlessly, but the spirit of it is pretty clear: eat something that *someone's* grandparents would have recognized as food. (Maybe not my grandmother; she lived on cola and molasses cookies from Safeway!)

I actually really like the 100 mile rule because I find myself eating more mindfully. When I'm aware that the banana is a deviation from the rule, I appreciate it a lot more because it's a special treat, not something I just eat for fuel. Since I try not to eat produce that grows locally in some season that's imported out of season, it means I'm *delighted* that local asparagus and strawberries are available now -- other than those two pears I was actually really good this winter about importing foods that grow locally here at some point. I do eat some frozen and canned vegetables and beans, but I'm considering putting up my own unless I can find a locally grown brand, and I like that frozen/canned veggies are usually put up when they're at their best.

This year? I plan to can or freeze berries and pears, to help get more variation next winter.