cooking

It’s beginning to SMELL a lot like CHRISTMAS!

~ thedailydish ~ 18 Comments

It’s the HOLIDAYS!  And for me that means COOKIES!!!!!

As many of you know, I run a low-sodium recipe site – also called THE DAILY DISH.  From now until Christmas, I will be highlighting holiday baking & gift-giving ideas.  AND I AM LOOKING FOR SOME MAGICAL ELVES TO HELP ME.

Do you have a favorite cookie recipe you would like to share with the world??  Do you LONG for FAME AND/OR GLORY?? or simply want to WIN A PRIZE?!

WELL, YOU and YOUR RECIPE could be featured on The Daily Dish.

I am holding a contest now through the end of this week, looking for delicious Christmas cookie and/or candy recipes.  If you have a tried-and-true personal favorite you would like to share, then please LET ME KNOW!  Although my recipe site is devoted to low sodium cooking, Your recipe does NOT need to be salt free.  I will be adapting entries to meet sodium restrictions.  All you need to do is THINK DELICIOUS and let me handle the rest.

To make a submission, please email me: CHRISTY at THEDAILYDISH dot US.  Put “Recipe Contest” in the subject line and be sure to include not only the recipe title, but list of ingredients and step-by-step directions.  If you have a photo you would like to include as well, by all means do so.

I will be accepting submissions now through the end of this week – Friday, December 12th – and YES. You may enter more than once.

ALL of the winning recipes will be announced here, Monday, December 15th, and will be featured on The Daily Dish website – one per day – beginning Monday, December 15th. All winners will be contacted via email, and will receive not only the honor of appearing live on The Daily Dish, but ALSO A FABBBBBULOUS PRIZE!!

So what are you waiting for?? ENTER NOW!

Thanksgiving is ALMOST HERE!

~ thedailydish ~ 16 Comments

Hello everyone! I hope that you’re enjoying the crisp autumn weather, as the days grow shorter and snowflakes begin dotting the air. As our thoughts turn collectively to turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, I wanted to touch base for a quick run-down of Thanksgiving recipes.

The holidays can be especially hard for those on salt-restricted diets – but they don’t have to be. With a little preparation and ingenuity, these times can be the best – and healthiest – you’ve ever known.

So let’s talk TURKEY. When it comes to the bird, think fresh. Although most free range fresh turkeys are expensive, they’re worth it. Not only will you be getting a bird much lower in sodium, but the animals themselves are also treated much more humanely. WIN-WIN. Whole Foods Markets, as well as many food co-ops, farmer’s markets, and butcher shops are selling fresh birds like hot cakes this time of year. With a little leg work, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to find one. If you haven’t or can’t purchase a fresh bird though, don’t despair! Most supermarkets have a whole array of options. In the past I’ve opted for kosher birds, which tend to be lower in sodium than the standard butterballs. But don’t limit yourself. Roast chicken is a healthy substitute, as are guinea hens, duck and quail. And many butcher shops have fresh birds that have not been treated with the broth/salt injections commonly afforded the processed birds.

Or, if you’d prefer skipping poultry altogether, I highly recommend this fabulous recipe for Roast Pork with Dried Plums.

Not to overlook vegetarians, I have recipes for several meat-free entrees that are sure to please. Vegetarian Holiday Loaf is adapted from a Vegetarian Times recipe of the same name. Vegetarian Lasagne, Zucchini Cakes, and meaty Gorgonzola Portobellos are all delicious, and there are a ton of other vegetarian entrees at THE DAILY DISH.

But – as usual – I’m getting ahead of myself! Why not start at the START with a delicious soup or salad! Soup makes any meal more memorable, and I have recipes for some serious stand-outs. Butternut Squash Soup will have your guests raving. As will the phenomenally gorgeous Beet Soup or Apple Butternut Soup. If greens are more your speed, try this tasty Warm Asparagus Salad or Simple Autumn Salad.

Now, let’s talk sides. No turkey dinner is complete without Cranberry Sauce and Stuffing! Baked apple slices are delicious with fowl, and are a sure hit with kids. Another idea is topping Mashed Sweets with some marshmallows, baking, and serving as an irresistible sweet potato casserole. Or you could try your sweet potatoes roasted, as in Fingers and Sweets. Creamy buttermilk mashed potatoes are FABBBULOUS, as are the always popular Twice-Baked Potatoes. Winter squash is also wonderful this time of year! For an extra showy and delicious meal, I highly recommend both Stuffed Acorn Squash, as well as Roasted Butternut Squash and Shallots.

Since most of us love some bread with our meal, try the simple rolls I made this summer with my daughters. Incredibly easy and delicious – and a great time even if you don’t have children of your own.

And what holiday meal is complete without DESSERT? Pumpkin pie is a must-have at our house. But there are some other absolutely delicious pies to consider as well – Squash and Pear Pie and Sweet Potato Pie are particularly popular this time of the year. I also highly recommend Pears in Wine, which look (and TASTE) divine but are supremely simple to make.

Finally, don’t forget beverages! I recommend a nice chilled white wine to complement the meal, but if you don’t drink alcohol, there’s no reason to feel deprived. Try some sweet milky Chai Tea with dinner or dessert.

Just remember, Thanksgiving is set aside as a day for giving thanks for all of our blessings, enjoying friends and family, and celebrating life. So don’t let your kitchen time stress you out so much you lose perspective. If things burn, flop or turn out just plain ugly, laugh and put your feet up, knowing you tried your best. There was always plenty of cursing around the kitchen while I was growing up, and my mom often sat simmering long after the meal was over. But there’s no reason to sweat the little things. So enjoy yourself, and enjoy a big satisfying meal without having to worry about the aftermath.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness

~ thedailydish ~ 8 Comments

It’s amazing how a day away from things can give perspective. Severed from my electrical umbilical cord, I AM A WHOLE NEW PERSON. Well not really, but it did allow me to put a day’s distance between me & THE DISH.

Part of the reason I had to stay off the computer was so I wouldn’t cave. B/c part of me just doesn’t want to stop doing The Daily Dish. Day in and day out. Forever and ever. Amen. This *part* of me is stubborn. It doesn’t care about ME. It is devoted to others. Their well-being. Their welfare. Their nutritional goals. SCREW YOU, it says. I call it Utilitarian Me, after John Stuart Mill. This part of me is always super determined. Disciplined. Moral. And now. ANGRY.

It is hard giving something up. Doubly so, when a part of you reeeeaaaaalllly doesn’t want to. Even if it’s bad for you or drives you crazy or makes you smell. Which isn’t my case, really, but you catch my drift. The Daily Dish is a good thing – a great thing, even. But it isn’t good for me right now. I am already juggling too much between the website, the kitchen, and my life. And now that summer’s fast approaching, I have been spending an exorbitant amount of time stressing over how I will get everything done with BOTH daughters at home. I shouldn’t be worried about any of that. I should be thinking of all the fun we’ll be having over the next few months. The beautiful weather. The hot days full of adventures and memories and time together. Instead I am thinking about the stupid website.

My daughters are, and have always been, my first priority. I gave up my career to stay home full time and I’ve never regretted it. I should feel no obligation to maintain a website I created out of the goodness of my own heart. And yet, I do. OF COURSE YOU KNOW I DO. But WHY? When I do it for no pay and it is becoming too taxing for words, that’s a bad thing. Lately I’ve felt like a fox in a trap, wondering whether I’ll have to chew off my own leg to save myself. My urge to maintain the status quo is almost too strong for my own good.

For now, it’s necessary to take a break. The website will remain as it’s been. I am not taking it down. I have avoided even changing it from the Memorial Day page, for fear I’ll CAVE. For the past year and a half, some part of my brain, sometimes all of it, has been consumed with this website. It’s like a baby. I literally gave birth to it, and it has been my passion. Developing recipes, deciding what to make, how to make it. What to work on, what to drop. I was already crazy about food and photography, but you put them together and I AM INSANE. When I was sick, I kept going. Doing anything dizzy is not a lot of fun. But still I did it, because I felt others were counting on me. When I went on vacation, I worried about my readers. Would they be okay? Would they be cheating? I thought more about them than I did myself.

I cannot tell you how liberating it is, after all these months, to taste FREEDOM. I spent 8 hours today cleaning my house. And even though I despise cleaning, today it felt good. No website. No recipe. As I scrubbed toilets, I thought about how SPARKLING THEY WERE. As I vacuumed, I thought how wondrous a machine a vacuum is, and how glad I am to have one. As my back ached while I bent over mopping the last floor of the house, I thanked GOD that I was finished. I wasn’t preoccupied with getting THE DISH done so I could take pictures while the light was good. Or having to orchestrate cooking of THE DISH so that it would conveniently coincide w/ mealtime. I didn’t have to think about any of that. Now my house is clean. And NOT ONLY THAT. BUT my priorities are straight, and summer is almost here.

So please don’t be sad. I want you all to know that this isn’t the end – it’s really, truly, the beginning. I have the next 3 months w/ my girls. I am SO EXCITED!! We will have so much fun together, and I will be blogging here about it all, sharing everything w/ you, my friends. In the fall, my daughters will BOTH be going off to school. And then – the fun BEGINS. The start of a real adventure for me. I’ve spent the past 8 years at home, being here for my family. Loving them, taking care of them, making everyone else a priority. For good bad & or UGLY, I’ve done it all. But come September, it’s Christy Time. IT’S ALL ME. And then anything is possible. Stay tuned. B/c come what may, I promise, it’ll be fun.

Attention DAILY DISH Readers

~ thedailydish ~ 7 Comments

Today’s recipe – Salmon Cakes – will be my last new post for a week. We are celebrating my grandmother’s 95th birthday with extended family this weekend and I’ll be BUSY!!! Unfortunately, waaaaaay too busy to make updates to the website. I will resume regularly-scheduled posting on Wednesday, April 30th, once the craziness has died down and everyone has returned home. Till then, please feel free to browse the Recipe Index at your leisure for hundreds of mouth-wateringly delicious low-sodium dishes. Many thanks for your continued support and VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA!!!

The day after.

~ thedailydish ~ 6 Comments

So how was your Valentine’s Day?? I have to say, I am feeling a little depressed this morn. It inevitably happens after a big holiday – I get sooooo EXCITED and then it comes and then it is gone. Way too fast. This feeling probably hits most people following Christmas – I know my mom gets it pretty bad, the blues, the doldrums, but for me, it’s Valentine’s Day. Oh well. I hope everyone had a terrific time yesterday. And I hope many of you got the Valentine’s cards on time. I have been thinking about that a lot. It was a relief knowing at least one arrived safely – Thanks Hayden. Really hope that tongue thing worked out for you.

WELL since I’ve been harping on Valentine’s Day Lo these many weeks, I thought you’d all enjoy hearing a bit about what I actually did.. SO HERE GOES.

My Official V-DAY Preparations began weeks ago (yeah, I CAN SEE you eye-rollers out there) with an initial trip to Target. They have those $1 bins of holiday-themed stuff in the front of the store, and for Valentine’s Day there were lots of frogs & chihuahuas. Neither of which makes me think of love, but were very cute nonetheless. So I got Post-it notes with the frog prince & socks with chihuahua cupids. Valentine’s Day candy. Gift bags. Headbands. All adorable. They seem to stock these $1 bins with the sort of stuff you will eventually use, so you don’t feel too guilty buying it. Because it’s only a DOLLAR after all. But it always makes me wonder – all this stuff coming from China that costs $1 and looks a whole lot better than $1, I wonder how much the person who manufactured it actually earned. Even a cent? How the hell could they possibly pay a living wage to the people making this and sell it so damn cheap? And then I feel guilty. TERRIBLY guilty. and I try not to think more on that b/c I l have filled my cart. And I know that I suck as I wheel it to the checkout. And as I place those bullseye bags in my trunk I feel an ache deep in my soul which begs to be held. Like that man who earned just 17 cents for the whole lot of it.

MAN. I feel really depressed now. And It’s only 9AM. Too early for wine. I have to go raid my kids chocolates. I’ll be back in a minute…

*****TIME PASSES*****

Okay. SO weeks ago I saw this stuff and even though it was early, like the first or second week of January, I thought WOW.this stuff is super cute and so cheap! I have to stock up. I will stash it away for the ladies for Valentine’s Day. And so I did, I got a whole bunch of stuff, and even though my younger daughter was with me, I knew she would forget. It must be fun being 4.

So I got cards and candy and a bunch of other heart-themed merchandise and when I got home I hid it. Several weeks later, I was at Target again, and I noticed how picked over everything was. They still had some stuff, but no where NEAR the selection they’d had just after Christmas. This is the reason why you need to buy early, to get the good pickins. So seeing the picked over less-good pickins reminded me of what I’d already bought. Unfortunately, sometimes I forget, like when we went to Atlanta for the holidays, and Christmas morning we’re opening presents and I realized that the Vince Guaraldi CD we’d gotten my dad was actually at home in the closet. Then I had to mail it with his birthday presents a couple weeks later, and I felt a little silly b/c it was a Christmas album.

Anyway, I remembered I’d already bought a bunch of stuff, and was very happy (even though now thinking about it I am way sad and don’t think I will ever buy anything from those $1 bins – or the dollar store, come to think of it, ever EVER again. and that poor man, he is probably supporting his extended family of 15 on that cruel unfair salary, living in a waterless thatched hut next to the town garbage dump. While those stupid corporate execs at Target are living in fat plush mansions, with gold-lined toilets, drinking espressos and eating $400 steaks. Those rat bastards. And that poor man. That poor, poor man……BOY……I am so depressed. I need more chocolate. Be right back.)

*****TIME PASSES*****

SO I AM truly crazy about Valentine’s Day!!!! I have no idea why I am this way, but it’s like Christmas & Easter excitement to me, all mashed together and sprinkly with a heaping helping of hearts. I know I am a truly hopeless romantic.

My day started out like any other Valentine’s Day should – in bed next to my main squeeze. Unfortunately both of the kids were there too, having woken us @ 6 AM jumping up and down yelling HAPPY VALENTINES (YO!). When I finally extracted myself from warm covers & their grasping paws, I enjoyed a nice breakfast. And on Valentine’s Day, even my cereal says “ROMANCE”.

The remainder of the morning was consumed orchestrating my SURPRISE V-Day treat for said main squeeze. I had a covert operation going with 2 of his coworkers, little did he know.. So after stops at SEVEN (count em SEVEN) different stores, I had everything I needed. I had already gotten the rest of the things from another 3 stores in the weeks before. Including Target. SIGH……………………….. [Reaching for the chocolates.]

SO WHAT DID I TAKE HIM??! I know you are all wondering, particularly in light of all the wonderful & marvelous suggestions I’d already offered on my great big list of creative, thoughtful & CHEAP Valentine’s ideas. WELL, I made him two gift bags. In one I assembled an array of presents, and in the other I brought him a special gourmet lunch.  But the gift-giving didn’t stop there. Oh no. For the past 2 weeks I have been working on a little covert operation of my own, code name: heart pillows. You see, after wracking my brains for days and days, trying to think of how to out-do my past V-Day extravaganzas, I decided I was going to make each of my three beloveds a pillow. But not just any pillow. I was going to make themed pillows of love, dedicated to each of them exclusively. I initally thought I would make square pillows, emblazoned with each of their portraits, cut out of fabric or felt and stitched on. But when I got to IKEA (that magical store I had decided to purchase pillow fixins from), I spied the most perfectly PERFECT & enchanting pillows ever. Big fat soft red hearts with crazy arms sticking out each side. WOW. I KNEW these were IT. So I bought three – and at JUST $9.99 each, a super cheap bargain. I will not think about how they got such a super cheap bargain right now b/c I have already had to let my pants out from all the chocolates. I feel confident that IKEA paid those pillow seamstresses a just wage and they are all living in penthouses or at least apartments with clean running water. So I am not thinking of that anymore – nah-nah-nah-nah-nah I can’t hear you bad thoughts..Now I will describe what I did to these pillows.

SO I went to the craft store and bought an array of multi-colored felt and fleece sheets, some shiny embroidery thread, and several beaded felt hearts. I brought all of this home, and then periodically, over the course of the next couple weeks, when no one was looking, I would break all of it out, put on heavy rock music and start sewing. It was hard to do – not only b/c it was very labor-intensive work, but b/c my time is consumed so many other ways. Blogging, cooking, photographing, wiping up bird poo, mothering, cleaning. Plus I like to read and drink wine and watch TV. Sometimes I even shower and get dressed and leave the house. So I am usually pretty darn busy – so making these fabulous pillows took quite a bit of doing. BUT I DID IT! And here’s how they turned out:



ANd everybody LOVED them!! And they were so SURPRISED!! I am so glad they didn’t look under the bed, b/c that’s where I’d been hiding everything during the ‘making of’ process. I had to stow them in one of those huge blue IKEA bags, but they didn’t quite fit:

That doesn’t look too good.

ANYWAY, last night we enjoyed an absolutely decadent meal of crab legs, shrimp, and bread from Metropolitan bakery. Then we drank champagne, (the kids had Boylans sodas – a real treat for them b/c we don’t usually drink soda) and we all ate the chocolate chip cheesecake I’d made earlier in the day. And even though I really am NOT a fan of cheesecake I have to say it was AMAZING and I could have eaten the whole thing myself. I was feeling a bit of a pig. But I cut myself off after two pieces. So we all watched Survivor – our family favorite! Then put the kids to bed and we decided to watch Lost. What a mistake. Is it just me or does anyone else feel that Lost has become an hour-long tease, sandwiched between the most irritating and/or offensive and/or downright fool stupid commercials? I am tired of the whole drawn out process of watching this show unfold. I like long & drawn out but where is the damn black smoke and the polar bears and the crazy ass forest whispers? I don’t give a crap about Benjamin Linus. Ooooohhh scary. This show – I feel like they’re just making it up each week as they go along, trying to keep us in the dark. It is very annoying. PLUS those horrible commercials. I feel like I am being pummeled by a pharmaceutical pusher – I don’t HAVE ALLLERGIES – and then when they busted out “Viva Viagra” I nearly turned the set off. Have you heard of TOO MUCH INFORMATION? Listen, if you can’t maintain erection and have to take a pill, fine. But when they have to warn you in the commercial that “You must see a doctor to see if your heart is strong enough for sexual activity” I am thinking maybe you as a 69 year old man shouldn’t be dating a lusty 25 year old. Seriously. No offense but she’s your granddaughter for pete’s sake. Talk about putting a dampener on my own libido. SIGH…… [Reaching for chocolates].