Old Salt - New Tack

Pushing My Comfort Level

2010-02-10T13:28:00.008-07:00

From the time I was 12 years old until I was 65 I had a job. Sometimes two jobs. Started with paper routes, ended teaching special ed and science in a high school on the Texas/Mexico border. In between I had social work jobs, teaching jobs, consultant jobs. I spent 9 years teaching people skills to young family practice resident doctors. Mostly, I was good at what I did. Sometimes better than others.

So here I am retired, seventy-two years old, operating with a some spare parts, a new heart valve, a below the knee prosthesis, and a pacemaker and one day I offer to join our local volunteer fire department. Even more surprising, they take me on, outfit me with turnouts and a helmet, and a radio and begin training me to assist on fire and medical calls. My mentor is a nineteen year old fireman, who is also an EMT (Emergency Medical Technician).

Seventy percent of emergency calls to our department are medical calls. My wife a retired middle school principal, is a paramedic who also works for the department. I saw no reason why I shouldn't follow that same path and now I am going to school at the local community college to learn to be an EMT. We started in January and will finish in May. My study partner is a 22 year old fireman. In the class we operate pretty much as peers. Our grades so far are in the nineties.

In spite of the decent grades I often find myself way out of my comfort zone. Most of my life I've made my living, talking. I've been a social worker and an educator. That was comfortable for me. But an EMT has to do much more than talk. An EMT spends most of his time on his knees working on someone who is on the ground or the floor. An EMT has to touch people and make on-the-spot decisions that are often a matter of life and death.

So I'm way out of my comfort zone. But it's OK. Probably good for me. Sure is exciting. Never considered myself an adrenalin junkie, but am enjoying the rush and excitement that is part of answering emergency calls.

Motivation for Getting and Staying Fit

2009-10-03T23:45:00.006-06:00

There's a saying in amputee circles (and that's a pretty exclusive club), "Amputees do what amputees want to do." In other words, if you have to face the world without the luxury of one or more of your limbs, your only real limitation is your self. Get to know amputees and you will find them doing all sorts of things, water skiing, running marathons, mountain climbing, that you might have thought were out of the question.

That same sort of thinking also applies to us older citizens. You want to be careful as you get older that you don't let the number of years you have under your belt start to limit your activities. It's easy to begin to shut down and accelerate our own aging. The answer might be to forget about the numbers and just do what you want to do, what you feel like doing. For example racquetball might not be on the menu for most 80 year olds, but I've played with a couple of 80 year old racquetball players who were still very competitive. My mother in law, was still a very good driver in her early 90's.

Both of my parents were dead and gone before they reached their mid-fifties, but in my wife's family everyone is alive and kicking right into their nineties. I'm looking to my in-laws for inspiration and example. Probably makes sense to avoid our peers who are reveling in their ailments and hang out with friends who don't seem to know how old they are. It really is possible to push the limits of our genetic inheritance with a positive attitude.

My version of pushing the envelope at 70+ has been to join the local volunteer fire department. I don't really expect to charge into burning buildings but I am learning how to operate the pumps on the engine and am scheduled to begin EMT training next month. So far the biggest problem has been how to quickly get the bulky "turnout" pants on over my prosthesis.

The down side of this experience has been living with some anxiety about knowing what I'm supposed to be doing on calls, most of which are medical EMT calls, and worry about getting up and out when calls come in the middle of the night.

The pluses are some really interesting and exciting experiences, learning a whole new set of skills, and increased motivation to exercise and to stay in good physical shape. A big plus has been the opportunity to get EMT training. In the past I've been a pretty good student and test taker. Will I, the oldest member of the department, be able to handle the training and the testing? Oh yes, it may be difficult, but I know how to study, and have the time to do it. And I expect that the course work will help keep the synapses in this old brain of mine firing and connecting.

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

Low Sodium - Almost Instant - Chili Soup

2009-08-14T11:26:00.005-06:00

This soup is a relative of my Almost Instant, Low Sodium Potato Soup. The recipe was concocted a day or so ago when I couldn't find anything for lunch to suit my fancy. It has all of five ingredients and all you do is mix them in a pot, heat, stir, and enjoy.

You will need:

1 - 14.5 ounce can of diced tomatoes, no salt added
1 - 15.5 ounce can of Cuban Style Black Beans
2 t. of chili powder
1/2 of one Chipotle Pepper
1/2 cup red wine

Mix the ingredients in a pan, simmer for 5 or 10 minutes and enjoy.

Makes 4 servings.

You can, of course, adjust the heat with more or less chili powder, more or less chipotle pepper. Be careful with the chipotles. Lots of heat there

The Cuban Style Black Beans came from Trader Joes. You could substitute no salt black beans and add a bit of spice. (coriander, cumin, dried onion, etc) That would substantially decrease the sodium.

The counts for a one cup serving of this version of Almost Instant Chili Soup

Calories 120
Fat 0.5 mg
Sodium 400 mg
Fiber 6

Weight Watcher Points for a one cup serving 2

How Starbucks Saved My Life

2009-05-14T17:09:00.006-06:00

These days I read what I please. If I pick up a book or a magazine and find the writing tiresome or beyond my interest at the moment, I don't hesitate to put the piece down. I read when the subject matter interests me, when the writing is smooth, when the words are true, when the read is effortless.

How Starbucks Saved My Life is a little book I read from cover to cover pretty much in one sitting. I read the book a couple of months ago and decided then to give it some press in this blog. Finally today I began to draft a note and returned to the book for a quick review. I read from the beginning and had read fifty pages before I stopped to think about what should go in this short review.

In his fifties Michael Gill loses his six-figure salary, gets divorced, and is diagnosed with a brain tumor. He is hanging out in Starbucks making calls, trying unsuccessfully to make a living as a private consultant when he is offered a job. All dressed up in a two-thousand-dollar suit he finds himself begging for a job serving lattes. Totally out of his comfort zone he gets the job and eventually becomes very successful. He boasts about being great at cleaning toilets.

This little book is a lot about Starbucks, but even more about how Michael Gill regains his self esteem in an unlikely and surprising way. That rang true for me. I'm retired from a long and reasonably successful career that covered Mental Health, Education, Business Consulting, and then high school classroom teaching. Being retired with no obvious day to day mission can erode one's sense of self. Aging brings it's catalog ailments and my faithful old body now operates with a number of body part replacements, including a prosthetic foot, a pacemaker, a new heart valve. While I'm happy to have the spare parts, it's hard not be aware that this body I live in is just a bit beyond it's prime.

So what I tuned into as I read, and reread, this little book was the way in which Michael Gill managed to rise up from what looked like a hopeless situation to a place where his self esteem and joy in life surpassed anything he'd experienced in his life as a high powered advertising executive.

Find and read this little book. You won't be disappointed.

New Food Data Widget

2009-03-28T15:22:00.003-06:00

Just a quick post here to point you to the right where you will find a new (on this site) widget which will retrieve nutrition data on most foods. For some time I have been using this site but just now found and installed the widget.

Losing Your Job Could be a Gift

2009-02-05T11:43:00.022-07:00

Michael Gates Gill lost his six-figure advertising exec job. He made too much money. He was told someone younger would work for less. Gill was devastated. But when he stumbled into Starbucks for a cup of coffee he found himself in the middle of a hiring fair that saved his life. He loves his new $10/hour job and is now the author of a best selling book, "How Starbucks Changed my life." For more of the story go to CNN.com

Handicapped or Inconvenienced ?

2009-01-04T11:30:00.005-07:00

At the left is what I think most "handicapped" stickers should look like.

I've got a handicapped sticker. I got it after my heart surgery. And I did use it some after that surgery and for a while after my below the knee amputation. After that it has been stuffed away in a hard to reach compartment of my van.

Especially after the amputation I was happy to use the sticker. For a couple of weeks I was in a wheel chair and then spent some time on crutches. But I really never liked thinking of myself as "handicapped." One ought to be careful about accepting that sort of a label. I was afraid that it would slow down my recovery and make me older sooner.

Having only one foot and dealing with a prosthesis is sometimes a real pain in the lower regions. Any shoes I buy have to fit on to this non yielding plastic foot. That means lots of pretty cool dress shoes don't work. Walking more than three of four miles is sometimes pretty uncomfortable. Most pants have to go on before the prosthesis and I can't wear cowboy boots.

But, I can travel anywhere I want. I can negotiate bathrooms and showers and locker rooms. I can walk through airports and stand in line when I need to. When I first tried to swim laps I had to learn to swim in a straight line with only one swim fin. When I get the chance I can play a competitive game of racquet ball (with my peers). Basically I can do whatever I want. (I can't play the piano now, but I never could play the piano.)

So why would I call myself "Handicapped?" I'll settle for "Inconvenienced"

Cup a Coffee - The Most Important Thing I Know

2008-04-30T09:35:00.009-06:00

Took a few minutes this morning to reshelve some books I had lying around and stumbled on to a copy of a book titled The Most Important Thing I Know. It's a collection of handwritten letters from famous people (75 of them) telling in a sentence or two what they felt was the most important thing they knew.

I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, so diverted from my clean-up campaign, I thumbed through the book and read most of the seventy-five entries. (They're short.) I was looking for the gem, the needle in the haystack which was exactly right. The one that said it all.

Maya Angelou, Poet, wrote: My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her fifty years ago and I still do.

Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, wrote: True excellence requires a worthy dream, a good idea of how to realize it and the courage to risk failure to achieve it.

Eileen Ford, Founder, Ford Modeling Agency, wrote: My parents always believed that I was The Best! With thoughts like that behind you, it's impossible not to strive for excellence. No one wants to disappoint their parents.

Greg Norman, Golf Champion, wrote: The journey is the reward.

Julian Bond, Civil rights pioneer, wrote: Excellence and equity are inseparable - a good society cannot have one without the other. Any society that abandons either is imperfect.

The longer I searched the more futile the search became. My grandmother was the mother of 15 kids, a good lady, but not a great source of inspiration. I am one of nine kids. My parents liked me but I was not the BEST. I am always dreaming. Are my dreams worthy dreams? What does it matter? The most important things these 75 people knew were not the most important things to me.

So just what is the most important thing? For me, today is the most important thing. Today I have to exercise, and then pay attention to what I eat, so as not to shorten my time on the planet, my time with my sweetie, my kids, my grandkids, my friends. Today I'm going to enjoy the clean, thin mountain air and the incredibly clear blue skies. Today I am going to work on a canoe I'm building in the garage.

Cup a Coffee - Live 30.9 Years Longer

2008-04-16T09:52:00.010-06:00

Fill up your cup, sit back, enjoy the aroma, and take a moment to have fun with some great information from . . . studies.

Statistics can be a constant source of amusement. A little newsletter titled Bottom Line/Health showed up in the mail yesterday, with an article called Drink Coffee... Eat Chocolate... & Other surprising ways to Live Longer. Michael Roizen, MD (coauthor of You, Staying Young) was interviewed and here is what I learned we need to do.

Sleep deep. Deep restorative sleep can add 3 years to your life.
Dance at least 30 minutes a day. Live 6.4 years longer.
Learn stuff and do puzzles. Good for 2.5 more years.
Get a dog and live for another 3 years.
More sex. Twice a week, 2 more years. Once a day, 8 more years.
Rest more often, (Seems to me like you'd have to) 8 more years.

Other good news is that studies have found that caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee are a main source antioxidants in the average American's diet. Caffeine in your coffee decreases the risk of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases by 30% to 40%.

Roizen also recommends eating one-half ounce of dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa) twice daily. Chocolate has powerful antioxidants know as flavonoids. You can also find these flavonoid guys in your brussel sprouts. Wonder if anyone is making chocolate covered brussel sprouts?

These look like great recommendations to me. I don't have a dog (wouldn't be fair to the dog), but I am going to work on 1, 2, 3, and 6. Number 5 ? . . . that would be just TMI. So do the math. Looks like another 30.9 more years are possible (if you are up to it ;-).

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Apologies to Dr. Roizen and Bottom Line for messing with some really good recommendations. Don't you just love studies and statistics. Anyone know where I can get some chocolate covered brussel sprouts?

Cup a Coffee - The Last Lecture

2008-04-14T14:16:00.004-06:00

Coffee this morning wasn't from Starbucks, not today. The nearest Starbucks is in Show Low, an hour and a half from here. It's been a great morning here in the White Mountains. It is starting to look like spring, at least it hasn't snowed for almost a week now. Fill up your cup, and be sure it's at least half full, not half empty and consider this.

My friend Mike, one of my one of kind friends writes to me and says,

how are you doing
we are having a heck of a blizzard, cant see across the street.
so I need more to do today, just playing at the computer and I run into something that makes me think of you. .......... go to YOU TUBE and watch the LAST LECTURE by Randy Pausch. It will take about 76 min, but I really believe it is worth every bit of it.

So last night I was responding to Mike's note. I really didn't want to watch a 76 minute You Tube thing, but I decided just to take a quick look so I might at least know what Mike was talking about. I got hooked. Randy Pausch is a Carnegie Melon professor, who at age 40 (?) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three to six months to live. His Last Lecture is actually his last lecture and is about what he has learned in life and what he wants to pass on. He has an amazingly positive, humorous, inspiring outlook on life. I spent 4 hours on the internet, tracking down all I could find on Randy. He has a web site where you can find his Last Lecture , a time management lecture (for all of us time is a finite commodity, especially Randy), and postings that track the course of his illness and treatment.

We all know that our days are numbered. It is interesting to see how our perspective and priorities change when we realize our number is getting smaller. Yes, Mike, The Last Lecture was worth spending 76 of the 1,440 minutes I had to play with yesterday.

Skewed Views - Sticker Shock

2007-11-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

The turn signal on my three year old van was misbehaving. Left was right, then right was left. Sometimes the signal didn't work at all. Had to get it fixed. Went to the Dodge Dealer and asked for a turn signal fix and an oil change. I knew it would be expensive, but thought I just might pay cash. I had $250 in my pocket.

They did a courtesy inspection, no charge. Came back to tell me that my water pump was leaking. Ouch. Knew I had to take care of the water pump, so I said OK put in the new pump. Then we might as well drain and flush the radiator while we are at it, right? Sure, that makes sense.

Two hours and forty minutes later the work was done.

Turn Signal Fixed

Oil & Filter Changed

Water Pump Replaced

Coolant Flushed

Total Parts $297.64
Total Labor $533.50

Two hours and forty minutes. $533.50 labor. By my calculations that's about $200 an hour.

They did have free coffee in the waiting room, but no donuts. In the morning, while I was waiting to check in, with 20 other unsuspecting victims, a perky young woman pranced up and down the line of cars taking names and giving out cardboard numbers. She was pleasant, and I guess that made the job of the actual service writer much easier. I wonder how much an hour she makes.

I've bought whole cars for less than the bill that morning. Good cars that ran a long time. When they were finished fixing and flushing, I thought maybe they'd wash the car. Nope, no car wash, no donuts. I hope the dealer's kids appreciate me sending them to college.

Why We Eat More Than We Think

2007-10-01T10:37:00.000-06:00

By now you know that this old salt is not a big fan of diets.

Here is a bit of support for that theory, which makes sense to me so I am passing it on. It's a book called Mindless Eating, Why We Eat More Than We Think. The author, Brian Wansink, describes his research in which he discovered that we often fool ourselves into thinking that we are eating less.

The answer - smaller plates, tall thin glasses, and simple changes in our eating routines.

Check it out at Mindless Eating. At Wansink's Blog, there is an article today about the halo we float over Subway food, (you know, Subway, where Jared got skinny just by eating Subway sandwiches all day long for the rest of his life). When we order what we have been programmed to think is a virtuous, healthy sandwich, say the veggie six-incher in the picture, we tend to think some chips or a cookie and a coke might go better with that sandwich than a water and that little tiny cup of yogurt.

Loose Weight without "Dieting"

2007-08-29T11:37:00.000-06:00

It was really easy to gain weight. Basically my secret was to eat a bowl of ice cream every evening. Put on 10 to 12 pounds in about a year.

So how does one reverse the process. Well, for me, the obvious answer was to 86 the ice cream. And for certain that was a start.

Here are are a couple more specific guidelines for trimming that waistline without really dieting. I really don't have a compulsive bone in my body, so it is hard for me to count calories, or stay with any sort of prescribed program for more than a few days, so these are guidelines that make sense to me. If you resonate with these you might like to track down the books.

The first is from the book, What to Eat by Marion Nestle (and reviewed by Maria Duncan at Book Reviews for Real People)
"The basic principles of good diets are so simple that I can summarize them in just ten words: eat less, move more, eat lots of fruits and vegetables. For additional clarification, a five-word modifier helps: go easy on junk foods."
The second is an appetite guage from Nourishing Body and Soul, the Chopra Center Cookbook. The gauge is designed to help us listen to our body's signals of hunger and satiety and then to eat appropriately, which would mean eating at level 2 or 3, and stopping at level 7.

10 Stuffed
9 Uncomfortably Full
8 Rather Full
7 Satisfied
6 Almost Satisfied
5 No Hunger Awareness
4 Could Eat
3 Definitely Hungry
2 Very Hungry
1 Hunger Pains
0 Completely Empty

The key of course is awareness. The amazing truth is that we can probably keep ourselves at very trim weights when we find ways to pay attention to the signals from our bodies.

Blueberries and Sour Cream

2007-08-10T09:31:00.000-06:00

This is a classy, easy dish. A great dessert to calm down the palate after a spicy meal. For me it's a more than acceptable substitute for the big bowl of ice cream that was, and maybe still might be, my favorite.

The Recipe

1 Handful of fresh blueberries
4 (More or Less) T no-fat sour cream

That's it. And it's not too hard, as you can see, to create a very attractive presentation. There are only about 50 mg of sodium per serving. Total calories estimated between 80 and 100. No fat.

Maybe, if you are just not too wild about sour cream, you would like a sweeter version. Replace the sour cream with a low, or no-fat aerosol, whipped topping. Lite Cool Whip might be an another alternative.

But hurry, while you can still find fresh blueberries in the market.

Don't tell anyone, but the blueberries in the picture were actually this morning's breakfast.

Black Bean & Sweet Corn Salad - Low Sodium

2007-08-08T13:02:00.000-06:00

How about an easy, attractive summer salad, that tastes as good as it looks.

You will need:

1 15 ounce can of low sodium black beans
about one cup of frozen sweet corn
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/4 cup diced red bell pepper
1 small can diced green chilies
1 T (more or less) olive oil
a splash of red wine vinegar

Rinse and drain the black beans. Then gently mix all of the ingredients together. The dressings are optional. In this version I sprinkled the mix with a bit of olive oil, then the red wine vinegar. Sprinkle easy then taste. Need to brightened it up a bit, sprinkle a bit more vinegar.

You might just try the salad (minus the oil and vinegar) with a bit of a medium salsa for a dressing. That works well. If you search you can find salsas with little or no sodium. Mine comes from a farmer's market type store called Sprouts.

Or you might like to experiment with other low sodium, fat free dressings.

If you get six servings, the sodium for the salad (without any dressings) would be about 70 to 80 mg per serving.

Sailing Upwind

2007-08-06T09:10:00.000-06:00

There is an old Jim Croce song that say's

You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind

That makes good sense to me and maybe gives us a hint about how to live a full life in the face of lifes little (and big) challenges. It's not a good idea to spit into the wind. You can't sail directly into the wind. Under sail you have to tack your way back and forth at an angle to the wind to reach that upwind destination. You have to work a little harder, but sailing upwind is actually the most exciting sailing, with the boat heeled over and the spray coming up over the bow.

Same way on land. If you've got a nasty problem, one that you really can't solve with a direct attack, try an end run. For example, right now I've bunged up my hip, probably by playing too much racquet ball. It really honks me off that now, when I have the time and resources to play, that I can't, or shouldn't. So what am I doing? Swimming. Not quite as much fun. Lonely compared to a foursome of old farts in a racquet ball court. But I am still doing something that helps me stay fit. That wasn't hard.

But what do you do when the doctor tells you that you have slowly progressing sort of cancer. One that will probably get worse. One that could kill you some day. But at the same time a very slow and treatable condition. Not curable but treatable. Well you can dive in and learn all you can about the condition, and try to do whatever to keep the thing in check. But there is a point where it doesn't help to think about it all day long. Time to move on. Live life. And how do you do that?

For starters you say, "How am I feeling right now? Am I in pain? Fatigued? Nauseous?" And if the answers add up to, "Hey, today, not bad at all," then that's what you focus on. What's going on today that's good and makes you smile

Finally, humor and meditation, are a couple of tacks that I know that help me stay focused on what's going on right now, and help to keep things in perspective. More on both in the future. For now check out what happened to a picture of this old salt when he played around on a web site promoting the new Simpson's movie, and Simpsonized himself.

You really can sail upwind, if you are willing to try a new tack.

Extending Our Stay on the Planet - Part 4 Muscle Mass

2007-07-23T15:18:00.000-06:00

Am easily distracted. Have wandered away from the blog for a while. Temporary change of venue now as we are off the mountain and down in the Arizona valley where a high of 95˚F is a cool day.

Here is what I know about muscle mass. Loss of muscle mass is one of the key signs of aging. The more you sit, the more likely you are to lose muscle mass. When you lose muscle mass not only do you lose strength, but your metabolism slows and muscle mass is replaced by fat.

The good news is that studies *show that even people in their nineties can increase muscle mass in relatively short periods of time (8 to 12 weeks) with exercise routines. And those revived muscles mean faster metabolism, more strength, better mobility, and better balance.

So what do we need to do?

You don't need to be Jack LaLane, but he's a pretty good example of somebody, who's older than dirt, who still keeps himself in pretty good shape. Get up and walk for starters. Do some stretching. Start working out with weights. None of this needs to be, nor should be, extreme. Start easy and increase the activity and or the weights as you go along. The minute you get up off your butt the picture starts to brighten.

Currently I am a very happy camper. At home in the mountains we have a pretty good assortment of dumbbells, and free weights. We also have a hand-me-down home gym thing with weights and pulleys called a Hard Core Gym. But, here in Tucson, where we will be for the next several months, I immediately joined LA Fitness, where I hang out in the morning and play racquetball with other old salts, and then work out using the weight machines and treadmills. And, there is a very nice pool for lap swimming.

Am also riding one of my bikes here in Tucson, where roads are paved and relatively flat, and most automobile drivers are aware of and courteous to cyclists. This is the first that I have ridden since my leg was amputated, and I am having a great time. In my youth, (40's and 50's) I was a strong rider, sometimes covering a 100 miles a day. Now I'm starting again from scratch, five miles this morning, but that's OK.

No doubt about it, hanging on to muscle mass improves our chances of sticking around and stay in motion a bit longer.

Want more muscle? Keep moving. Make a plan that works for you.

If you have time and funds you might like a gym. A place like LA Fitness is more or less reasonable. $149 one time sign up then about $30/month. At the place I go you'll find everyone from bulging, ripped, tattooed body builders to some old salts who almost shuffle from machine to machine, and everyone in between. They have aqua fitness sessions that fill the pool with golden agers. Everyone is friendly and helpful.

Funds lean? Time short? No access to a gym or physical rehab center? Don't let these very real excuses stop you. Remember this is a life and death matter. Find a way to move and stretch on a regular basis. Get on line and look for exercises you can do at home with little or no equipment. Get out and walk. Walk in the mall. There are ways and when you are ready you will find them.

*Protecting Muscle Mass as You Age
*The Physiology of Aging: What You Can Do to Slow or Stop the Loss of Muscle Mass

Desperation Soup - An Almost-Instant, Low Sodium Potato Soup

2007-04-22T19:20:00.001-06:00

I'm trying to adjust my life style, and that means not eating stuff with fat or sugar. Actually I'm pushing it a bit these days. I'm really tired of this fat belly I've acquired in the last couple of years. And today it was noon and the refrigerator was bare and the pantry wasn't much better. There was an envelope of a creamy potato soup mix that was a strong lunch possibility, but it had 500 mg of sodium. Too much.

And then what to my wandering eye did appear, potato buds and non-fat dry milk. Desperation breeds creativity. I could make my own potato soup, almost instantly. Sounds a little weird but it turned out to pretty darn good.

Try it. For a one cup serving you will need.

1/3 C Potato Buds
1/3 C Non-fat dry milk
2 t All Purpose Chef's Shake (Spice Hunter)
1 t Butter Buds
Boiling water
Ground black pepper

Just mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl and add enough boiling water to get the consistency you like. Let it sit just a minute or so to cool and to rehydrate the dried spices in the Chef's Shake.

This is a no fat recipe with a total of 160 calories, 145 mg of sodium, and a bonus of 10 mg of protein per serving

You could easily substitute other no-salt seasonings that contain garlic, onion, black pepper and usually an assortment of other spices.

Want more servings? Just multiply the ingredients.

I was surprised. Hope you like it too.

Extending Our Stay on the Planet - Part 3 Unloading Extra Pounds

2007-04-15T12:25:00.001-06:00

We want to stay on the planet for many more exciting years. We've got an intense desire to be around when those grandkids graduate from college and we're pretty good at adapting to the changes that lurk beyond every bend in the road. Does that guarantee we get to watch that kid throw his or her cap in air? We know better. No guarantees. But we are going to take reasonable steps to tip the scales in our favor.

And it's that bathroom scale, the one we climbed onto this morning, that we need to tip in our favor. Carrying too much weight, will shorten our life span. Too much weight is too much fat and too much fat means big-time health risks, that can include heart and blood pressure problems, muscular skeletal problems, breathing problems, self esteem problems and on and on.

So here's my take on getting skinny and staying there. If you want to lose weight you need to do three basic things.

Eat less fat
Eat less sugar
Shake your bootie

How you do that? Well you could go on a diet. There are lots and lots of diets. You could try a grapefruit or sauerkraut diet or you could eat lots of paper tasting rice cakes. You could live exclusively on magic protein powders that you mix with water. You could try the Atkins diet, or the South Beach diet, or sign up for Weight Watchers. Jenny Craig, for a price, will deliver breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks to your doorstep. Dr. Phil who knows exactly what to do about everything, will sell you his book The Ultimate Weight Solution. I found a list of 24 diets and diet descriptions at a site called Evaluate the Latest Diets. Check it out.

Do diets work? Sure they do. Stick to the plan and you will lose weight. So what's the problem? The problem is: after the weight comes off and the diet is done, the weight comes back and the cycle repeats.

What works better? Life style changes or, diet and life style changes, works better. Say, every day before you go to bed you have a 300 calorie bowl of ice cream, but one day you say, "Hey, I'm going to stop eating that bowl of ice cream at night." And you actually do stop. That's more like a life style change than a diet. Your routine doesn't include ice cream at night anymore. The result, if you keep the same eating pattern, except for the ice cream, and continue the same activity or exercise patterns, could be a weight loss of about 30 lbs in a year.

Weight gain or loss is a matter of calories consumed balanced by calories burned. So to lose weight you can consume fewer calories (eat less) or burn more calories (more activity/exercise) or both. That works. But if you want to keep the weight off you need an approach that you can literally use for the rest of you life.

The Old Salt approach works like this.

Fat = calories. I know I can reduce the amount of fat in my diet. I used to eat a steak about once a week. A really fine, nicely marbled steak, tastes great but has lots of fat, fat that I don't need. Now I have a steak about once a month, and lately, especially when the steak is a big 6 to 8 ounce piece, my wife and I split one steak.

Sugar = calories. I'm the guy in the ice cream example. After heart surgery, I had no appetite, everything tasted bad. But I could eat ice cream, and I did. Gradually my appetite returned, and two years later I was still eating ice cream and everything else in sight. Gradually I had gained about 25 to 30 lbs. Now I've almost stopped eating ice cream. Sometime in February I stopped keeping ice cream in the fridge. Gradually and slowly I'm loosing weight.

Both the steak and the ice cream are life style changes I can maintain. Much easier (for me) than dieting and counting calories. Weight loss will be slower than dieting, but more likely to be permanent.

Walking or running or bicycling, or just working at a job that requires a high level or activity are ways to shake your bootie and keep burning those calories. Maintaining an increased activity level, over an extended period of time, will change the amount of calories burned, and, assuming you don't increase your intake, will result in a weight loss.

So life style changes work for me, but not everyone is like me. I know that different approaches work for different people. Some folks, like my friend Joel, do very well with a very systematic, diet. Joel keeps records of what he eats on a daily basis and carefully limits both calories and sodium. He also keeps track of his workouts. And he is losing weight. Joel's blog has his daily records and lots of other interesting information.

So find an approach that works for you. If you love diets, go for it, but remember that to keep the weight off, to keep on wearing those new skinny clothes, you will need to make life style changes that impact both calories consumed and calories burned.

Coming Soon - - Muscle Mass . . . (A religious service for weight lifters???)

Zucchini and More - Colors Galore

2007-04-15T11:30:00.000-06:00

Yes, that's a skillet, but we are not going to fry this colorful batch of low calorie, low sodium veggies. We are going to steam them. No need for any special steamers. All you need is a decent sized pan with a lid and low heat. Because the zucchini and yellow squash have a high moisture content you can actually steam them without adding any liquid. But for this batch we are going to add a half cup (more or less) (actually a healthy splash) of white wine, today a Cabernet.

The combination and amount of vegetables is up to you. To clone this batch,

You will need:

2 medium to small zucchinis - sliced
1 yellow squash - sliced
1/2 large sweet onion - sliced and broken into rings
1 medium sized tomato - cut into small pieces
1/4 sweet red pepper - cut into small strips
l large carrot - sliced diagonally as thin as possible
2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
1/2 C white wine or apple cider

That's it. Put all of the ingredients into a large pan with a lid. Non stick is a good idea but not absolute. Lid is absolute. I start with high heat, just until the pan is hot, and then turn the heat down very low. Put the lid on and cook until veggies just barely retain a bit of their crunch. For these to turn out just right you will need to check periodically. Overall time for this batch was about 6 to 8 minutes. When they are almost perfect, take the pan off the heat. You can leave the lid on a few minutes until you are ready to serve. Very low calories. Not enough sodium to count.

A batch of steamed veggies like this is great served over brown rice or noodles. For a real treat top with a bit of the spicy peanut sauce also found in this blog.

Extending Our Stay on the Planet - Part 2 Adaptability and Goals

2007-04-13T21:52:00.000-06:00

Today, while were walking down the road in a Spring snow storm, and while trying not to get blown into the ditch, Sarah says to me, "Not everybody is all that worried about how long they are going to live." And I thought, "She's right." Teenagers think they're immortal. Young adults are busy with jobs, mating, families, recreation. A fair number of adults workout and pay attention to what they eat, but their immediate issue is probably not how many years they are going to live. But when you wake up one day and realize that you are the oldest person in your clan (that's me) you really do start to pay attention.

So what is the key to sticking around as long as possible while still being able to remember your name and being able to find your way home on your own? I would have voted for genetics, or possibly a positive outlook, but one of my favorite experts, Deepak Chopra, tells it this way:

Emotional adaptability is the most important single factor in keeping a person well and living long. Everyone undergoes crises, but people who can bounce back, who look toward the future instead of dwelling on the past, and who demonstrate emotional resilience are the ones who survive best.

And that makes sense to me. Lance Armstrong gets a cancer that knocks him flat on his back, invads his brain, takes one testicle, and almost takes his life. What does he do? He marshals every possible resource, learns everything he can about the cancer, submits to frightening surgery and months of nauseating chemotherapy and gets well. He calls his cancer a "bump in the road." Then what does he do? He wins the Tour de France seven years in a row.

Put positive spin on what some would call disaster and it's not hard at all to move on. My own experience having a rotten smelly leg amputated, seemed like a relief to me, an opportunity to get on with my life, a "bump in the road."

If we can change our perceptions about old age we may also be able to extend our own lives. We've all heard that we are what we eat. Take that a step farther and know that we all create our own realities. If we truly believe that old age begins at 65, we will behave in ways that will make that come true. Old rocking chair will get us. Hearing about 102-year-old Elsie McLean, made me realize that I was thinking that anyone over a hundred years old was probably drooling, and in a rocking chair. Not Elsie, she's out playing golf and making a hole-in-one.

For me, the most important keys to extending my own stay on the planet are goals and a sense of purpose. I've got 16 grandkids. One of my goals is to stick around long enough to see everyone of them graduate from college. My intention is to show up and be sharp enough to know what's going on and fit enough to locomote under my own steam.

Up next - An Old Salt's take on unloading those extra pounds.

Extending Our Stay on the Planet - Part 1

2007-04-12T16:47:00.000-06:00

My dad died when he was 53. My mom died when I was about 4 years old. I'm already in my 70th year and my medical records are the size of a Chicago phone book. So what does that say about my life expectancy? Some would say I'd best not buy any green bananas. But I'm not listening. I've got 16 grandkids ranging in age from almost two to 16 years old, and I intend to see each one of them graduate from college.

So what can we do to outrun crappy genetics and whatever else already ails us? What can I do to give my self a chance to attend my youngest grandson's graduation while still reasonably sound in mind and body?

There's hope. We can begin by taking steps today to extend our stay on the planet.

Start by knowing that there are folks out there sneaking past the century mark who are still coherent and who get around on their own locomotion. My wife's mother and aunts and uncles make it into their eighties and nineties in pretty good shape. How about 102-year-old Elsie McLean, whom you might have seen on TV a last week. Elsie made a hole-in-one playing golf with the “girls” on a 100 yard, par 3 hole at a golf course in Chico, California. Maybe you and I won't make a hole in one, but we can extend our stay.
People who live the longest tend to be sort of narrow. They don't carry around much adipose tissue, that greasy yellow stuff we call fat. We have to unload those extra pounds to give ourselves a chance.
Aging = loss of muscle mass. If I want to see my grandson graduate I will have to get out there and walk and I will have to push myself to find a way to lift some weights to keep and increase my upper body muscle mass.
We're going to need a maintenance program. If you had a new car you would probably follow a maintenance program. Our bodies are more important than cars or trucks. We need regular checkups, and good medical care when we are ailing. We need nutritious foods and maybe a vitamin or two.
We need to manage the stress in our lives. You may not be able to change what is happening around you, but you certainly can change what you say to yourself about what’s happening. “Ain’t if awful,” will raise your stress level. Finding a bit of humor in a stressful situation will lower your stress level. When I had a leg amputated my four-year-old granddaughter had us all laughing with, “Now grandpa will be like a weal piwate.”

To be continued. In days to come we'll expand on specific steps we can take to extend our stay on the planet. Know that I write about these topics with a dual motive. These notes often serve to remind me of what I need to be doing. If they ring true and are helpful to some of you out there in cyberspace that makes me smile. Please comment or send me an email.

A Very Narrow Course

2007-04-08T17:24:00.000-06:00

Spent a good part of the afternoon today in front of the TV watching the Master's Golf Tournament. Mercifully the program was almost commercial free, and commentators commented sparingly. However, one of the commentators, filling the gap between Tiger Woods' final attempts to salvage his chance for a playoff and the presentation of the green jacket to Zach Johnson, quoted Bobby Jones, legendary golfer of the 1920's and 30's. "Competitive golf is played mainly on a five-and-a-half-inch course, the space between your ears."

Oh yes, how true, for golf, and for all of the other games of life. What we say to ourselves, think to ourselves, what we believe to be the truth, may have more influence on our lives and our happiness than the external forces we like to blame.

Go Fly a Kite

2007-04-07T10:30:00.005-06:00

At 79 years old, Ray Bethell is a world record holder many times over in multiple kite flying. He continues to break records and offers escape to both young and old. Despite the unfairness of life, the human spirit endures, "and that’s good stuff."

Here are two really interesting and inspiring short videos showing Ray flying his kites and talking about his outlook on life and on his take on dealing with the bumps we encounter along the way.

This link will take you to the video called "Good Stuff"

Here is another fun short video of Ray flying kites.

Enjoy

NO Salt or LOW Salt

2007-03-27T18:52:00.000-06:00

A lady in a white coat caught my attention. I was only a few days out from an open-heart surgery that almost did me in. I was out cold for three days after the surgery, and it was 30 days before I escaped from the hospital. So when she told me that patients who took their medicine and limited their sodium intake tended to stay alive longer, I listened.

So I went home and tried to avoid eating or drinking anything with sodium. And of course nothing tasted right. I tried to cook with absolutely no salt and the results were just awful. But now, a couple of years later, the low salt restriction has become a little easier to live with. That is due in part to getting used to less salty foods and to finally realizing that 2000 mg of salt per day means low salt not no salt.

Cook up a pot of pinto beans with out salt and the result is tough to swallow. But when you add a little salt then the beans began to taste like something you might want to eat. How much salt? Estimate the number of servings in the pot. Eight servings? OK. What if each serving had 300 mg of sodium? 8 X 300 = 2400 mg, or one teaspoon of salt. That will work and the beans start to taste sorta like the ones mom used to make.

We bake most of our own bread now. A half teaspoon of salt per loaf means that if you get twelve slices from the loaf, you are looking at 100 mg of sodium per slice. Not bad, when every loaf you can buy off the shelf at Safeway has 180 to 300+. And the bread we bake, particulary the no-knead is really good.

I’ve also found that I can eat potato chips, and tortilla chips, if, I shop carefully and limit the amount I consume. Chips range in sodium content from 80 mg per ounce to 300 and more mg per ounce with some brands of chips topping out near 500 mg per ounce. Go for the low numbers and enjoy them chip by chip. Don’t inhale them. A small kitchen scale will really help you to know how many ounces of chips, or cheese you are eating, and will keep you honest in your estimate of a one ounce serving.

So I am gradually finding ways to eat and stay within the very stingy salt restriction 2000mg/day and at the same time enjoying what I eat. A little moderation goes a long way.

BBQ Shrimp with a Corn Relish- Low Sodium

2007-03-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

My oh my, you are gonna like this one, a low sodium recipe fancy and tasty enough for company. (580 mg sodium per serving - 2 generous servings)

You'll have to do a little preparation, but it's easy and fun. You'll feel like you are getting ready for your own TV cooking show. It combines a corn relish we are going to mix up with some awesome "barbecued" shrimp. Here we go. Three basic steps.

Mix up the corn relish
For the corn relish you need.

2 C of frozen corn
1/4 C chopped red bell pepper
1 T olive oil
1/8 C chopped cilantro
1/2 small white onion chopped
1 t chili flakes
1/4 C low sodium chicken stock (less than 500 mg sodium per cup)
1 T Worcester sauce
2 T cider vinegar
1/2 t sugar
Cajun Spice (Spice Hunter Cajun Creole Seasoning - salt free)

Heat a large non-stick skillet. Add the frozen corn and the pepper to the dry skillet and roast them until the corn just barely begins to brown. When the corn and pepper are barely roasted dump then into a bowl, add the rest of the relish ingredients, sprinkle with the Cajun spice to taste, and mix. Set aside to marinate while we prepare a roux and saute our shrimp.

Prepare a roux
Easy now, a roux is simple, and we need it for a thickening when we put this very cool dish together.

Melt 1 T unsalted butter over medium heat in a small sauté pan
When the butter is melted gradually stir in 1 T white flour, continuing stirring and heat slowly until the mixture turns a nice golden color.
Take the pan off the heat and set it aside.

Sauté the shrimp
I use raw, frozen, tail on shrimp that I buy at Costco. These are medium sized. (31-40 count per pound) Watch the sodium content on shrimp as it can be high. The ones I use have 280 mg of sodium per serving (about 9 shrimp).

You will need

About 18 shrimp, thawed and patted dry
1 T butter
1 T oil
1 T (or more) minced garlic (you can buy it already minced in a jar)
1/4 C chicken stock (low sodium)
1 T Worcester sauce
Cajun Spice

Melt the butter, oil, and garlic together. When the skillet is hot and you can smell the garlic, add the shrimp and sauté quickly, less than a minute per side. Add a little oil if necessary. Sprinkle generously with the Cajun spice, add the Worcester sauce and chicken sauce and sauté until everything is hot.

Combine and Serve
Add the corn relish to the skillet and heat. Scrape the roux into the relish and shrimp mixture and stir until it is mixed in. Heat just long enough to thicken and your are ready to serve up an awesome dish.

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This is recipe adapted from a TV cooking show where the chef magically sprinkles the ingredients without obviously measuring and puts the whole thing together in about 5 TV minutes. I could not find an actual recipe so the measurements here are my approximations. Feel free to wing it and adjust according to your own tastes. The original dish is a creation of Chef Brett Maddock at Arnold Palmer’s restaurant in La Quinta, California.

No-Knead Bread - What To Bake It In

2007-02-19T15:21:00.000-07:00

Hooray for No Knead Bread. We’re hooked here and this bread has become our staple. We haven’t bought a loaf of bread since Christmas. Sarah and I have both had a hand in it and have baked over 30 loaves of bread, most of them one at a time. Here’s what we’ve learned.

It’s hard to make a mistake.
Rising times are very flexible. We’ve let it rise as little as 10 hours, and as long as 30 hours (when we forgot it).
Because the dough was so sticky we had problems when we tried to wrap it in a towel. Couldn’t get it unstuck so we began just dumping the dough out of the bowl onto a floured board and covering it with plastic wrap. Worked fine.
We’ve only thrown one loaf away and that was the one that stuck to a pot that was the innards of an old crock-pot. Just couldn’t get it out without busting it all up. The problem was that the pot was scored on the bottom and hard to get completely clean.
The baking container doesn't need to be as big as we thought. We found an old bowl in a thrift shop that works great. (On the left in the picture) The inside diameter at the top is 9 inches and it is about 6 inches deep. Lid came from the thrift shop too. Just the other day found a second pot at the thrift shop. It’s the one on the right, a bit smaller but works fine. Bowls were five dollars apiece. Makes sense to me to cook a very basic, inexpensive bread in a very basic, inexpensive pot.

Happy bread baking. So simple, yet better than you can buy almost anywhere.

Here is a link to our original No-Knead Bread Post

How To Be A Great Cook

2007-02-15T11:48:00.000-07:00

Want to be a great cook? You need three magic ingredients:

Olive Oil
Garlic
Onions

That's it! You're on your way.

Heat up that skillet. (Make it non-stick skillet and save your some grief) Pour in a little olive oil, add some chopped or smashed garlic (several cloves not the whole bulb, unless of course there are vampires hovering) and throw in a fistful of chopped onion. Sauté just long enough to fill the house with that wonderful bouquet of garlic and olive oil and you’re on your way to a great quick entrée and a great reputation as a cook.

Now add chicken breast, cubed, strips, or whole pieces. Brown both sides then lower the heat and cook gently for a few minutes. Get the skillet off the heat just a soon as chicken is barely cooked through while it is still tender and juicy. Season with pepper a tiny bit of salt if you can afford it. Serve with a dash of a good barbecue sauce.

Or when that great bouquet fills the kitchen, add sliced and diced vegetables, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, broccoli, tomatoes, whatever, you can find in the fridge. Put the stuff that takes longer, like carrots, in first or add them as very small pieces or slivers that will cook quickly. Quit cooking while there is still a bit of crunch in some of the veggies. Serve your sautéed veggies over rice, brown of course, unless like me you sometimes still yearn for that plain and quick white stuff. For a real treat dribble a bit of Thai Peanut Sauce on top.

Make a spaghetti sauce starting with the three magic ingredients. Add tomatoes, mushrooms, something to spice things up (red pepper flakes or chili oil or jalapeños or green chilies) and you’ve done it again.

So their you have it, culinary magic. Use your imagination. Experiment. Have a good time. Let me know how it turns out.

Half empty? Half full?

2007-01-11T09:10:00.000-07:00

Planned to get outdoors and walk this morning, but with the temperature below 30, and the wind above 30, I waffled and went for a trip on the treadmill, which just happens to be located strategically in front a TV, where I found an old (1999) Starwars movie.

Well this old salt found some comfort and humor in this bit of entertainment. Lots of robots in this tale and it occurred to me that in some ways I’m not too much different. I’ve got a heart valve made out of left over pig parts that helps the pump work more efficiently, a neat little pacemaker/defibulator tucked in under my collar bone to keep my rhythms syncopated , and a very cool below the knee prosthesis, complete with an air shock, to let me stand on my own two feet. (Both feet are “my own” even though one of them is not original equipment.)

So is my cup half empty or half full? Should I despair about all the parts that have broken down and get ready for the next disaster, or rejoice at my ability to breathe the mountain air, canoe, hike, drive, delight in grandkids, build stuff in my workshop, and generally do as I please?

Today the choice is obvious and easy. Rejoice. Damn, I’m a lucky guy. And I post this note not to brag, but in part to remind myself of my good fortune, because with all that I have going for me it is still possible on a cold and dark winter day to get a bit worried and depressed and waste my time in a black mood.

And because today is the only day you and I can really count on, I plan to have a hell of good time. May the force be with you.

Christmas Cheer

2006-12-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

I have escaped the Midwest. Never was too enthused about winter. Grew up with cars that didn’t start in sub zero weather, gas lines that froze. and even, way back, with water pipes and pumps that froze.

And now I live in these Arizona mountains where winter comes in small doses. Not as cold as my native land. The snow here, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, doesn’t seem to last as long. And I am surrounded by people who love the stuff. So my attitude is thawing a bit. It thaws a bunch when my little grandkids arrive from the flatlands all eager and excited about just seeing snow.

And this looks to be a great Christmas. We have our snow. The roads have been cleared. A good supply of firewood is stacked on the porch. The tree is trimmed, outdoor lights are strung, and this old salt has emerged, just on time, from his garage workshop (heated with woodstove of course) with a great hobbyhorse. Brought it in and tucked it next to the tree this morning. Kids and grandkids are on their way. Old Salt's smiling. Hope young grandson smiles too.

Good to be alive.

A Hot Time in the Old Town

2006-12-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

Aiiii conejitos! Like a moth to a flame I am drawn to it. Capsaicin, my instantaneous path to pain and endorphins. the magic ingredient I ingest in my quest for flavor in a sodium free world. The sun sets I indulge, the sun rises I pay.

Capsaicin, the chemical that makes chili hot, binds to receptors in the sensitive lining of the mouth. That’s obvious. But guess where else it finds a sensitive lining with which to bind. You guessed it. You already knew. You’ve been there haven’t you. These very sensitive receptors also live at the other end of the road.

Yes, I did it again. We went down the mountain, to run some errands, to pick up some things for Christmas stockings, to replenish our stock of fresh vegetables. And lo and behold, what to our wondrous eyes should appear, but a James Bond movie, on the marquee of the one and only movie house in town. But it is four o’clock and the movie doesn’t start until seven. We will have to kill some time, not an easy thing to do in this little town. There are two fast food emporiums, one supermarket, two dollar stores, one “drug” store, no mall, no Tinseltown. It does have sidewalks, and street lights, and, in fact, Christmas decorations. We go to the dollar store. We pick up some groceries. We tour the “drug” store, no ordinary drug store, this one. Yes, you can buy drugs there, and while there you can also buy a gun, and ammunition, and a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a yard or two of fabric, and craft supplies, and a replacement cartridge for your printer, and an ice cream bar. When we finish our tour it is only five thirty.

We will treat ourselves to dinner. Choices include, one oriental, one fussy (open only to a private party tonight), a place called Booga Red’s, the Safire, and a Mexican restaurant. We know and like the Mexican place and it just happens to be open. We are in luck. There is a sign on the door that says they are going to close for a winter vacation. Will open again in February.

Well, the food this Mexican lady serves is all the way off old Wilbur’s scale. Great taste, incredible heat. I loved every bite even though at times my mouth was burning and I was reaching for the water pitcher. When we left my scalp was wet with sweat, one of the things that chilies do for me. Finally it was time to go see what Bond was up to.

The movie house and its equipment are antique, and that includes the ticket machine, the popcorn machine, and apparently the projector. It’s a trip just to go there, no matter what the show. They are open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Shows at seven and nine, but you better go for the seven, especially in the winter. Less than twelve paying customers and the nine doesn’t happen. Counting the two of us there were eight at the seven. Two of them were teenie boppers, who got a hot cell phone call midstream and departed. The movie was good, though I prefer the classic Bond. This last lacks the humor and gimmicks that made 007 special.

Capsaicin never lets me off easy. This morning I paid my dues.

Notes on the Art of Baking Bread

2006-12-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

Bread makes itself, by your kindness, with your help, with imagination streaming through you, with dough under hand, you are breadmaking itself, which is why breadmaking is so fulfilling and rewarding.

Breadmaking is basically not a complicated process. Mix some flour with enough water to form a dough, adding a touch of salt perhaps; shape it, bake, the result is bread in its simplest, most fundamental form: dense, coarse, crusty, robust, spirited, earthy.

From the opening pages of The Tassajara Bread Book

Of the several bread books that I own the Tassajara Bread Book is my favorite. I like the approach, the recipes are simple, the instructions are detailed and well illustrated. And it is easy to move on and improvise once one gets a grip on the basic bread.

Bread is really very basic. We’ve found that we can even make a no-knead bread with just flour, water, and a bit of salt and a tiny bit of yeast. And that bread is so popular that there are hundreds of posts on the internet every day about this one simple recipe.

And in my own experience I’ve found that bread making is easily learned, and the process of making bread is fairly forgiving. I don’t measure much. With very little experience you’ll find that you can just measure the water and the yeast, and of course the salt, and then add flour until the dough looks right and feels right. I pay little attention to the kind of yeast I use. I just keep it refrigerated and try to use it within a couple of months from its purchase. I live in the mountains at 8000 ft but don’t even think about any adjustments for altitude. I just watch the bread rise and when it looks right I bake it. I have also found that bread will rise in fairly cool environments, our house seldom gets to more than 70° F inside, and bread rises just fine.

If you are looking for some help learning how to knead bread there is a pretty good illustrated tutorial on the Internet called How to Knead Bread Dough

For me baking is not a hobby nor an avocation, it is simply a way of getting good healthy bread on the table. But I do enjoy the process. I like kneading bread. I like the aroma in the house as bread is rising and baking. And I can seldom wait to slice off the end of that loaf and butter up a slice.

And for those of us who are fighting the sodium battle every day it is really nice to have a great piece of bread with less that half of the sodium of the breads that we can find on the shelves of the supermarkets and bakeries.

Happy Baking

Basic Bread Recipe - Low Sodium

2006-12-14T13:25:00.000-07:00

Here is a very basic bread recipe. It has very little salt, and you can make it with white flour or wheat flour or any combination. I usually use about half white and half wheat. Some times I sweeten it with a healthy dose of molasses.

The recipe starts by making a sponge. You mix about half of the flour for the recipe with all of water and the yeast and the sweetening and let that mixture rise for a while before adding the salt and kneading in the rest of the flour. This first step lets the yeast get to work in the absence of salt, which inhibits the yeast’s functioning.

Ingredients

3 C lukewarm water (85°-105°F - not hot or cold on your fingertips)
1 1⁄2 T dry yeast (2 packages)
1⁄4 C sweetening (honey, molasses, or brown sugar)
6 C approx. flour (whatever kind you like or have on hand)
1/4 C veg. oil
1 t salt

Measure the water into a big bowl. Sprinkle in the yeast and stir to dissolve. Add the sweetening. Then gradually stir in about 3 cups of the flour. Beat about a 100 times until the batter is very smooth. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for 45 minutes (more or less). Warm is better, but our place right now is about 65° and the bread is rising nicely. Altitude probably helps. Not being in a hurry helps most of all.

When the sponge has increased in size and shows some small bubbles, stir in the salt and the oil.

Now add about three more cups of flour. Gradually stir as much of the flour as you can into the sponge. When the batter is too stiff to continue stirring, turn the bread out onto a floured surface and knead the mixture until it is smooth and elastic. If the mixture sticks to your hands work in more flour.

Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled. Knead again, let it rise again. When it has doubled again or is close to double, knead one more time and then split the dough into two equal portions. Shape the dough into loaves and place in 5x9 loaf pans that have been oiled lightly. With a sharp knife make 3 diagonal slashes in the top of each loaf. Let the dough rise in the pans until it is above the top edges of the pans.

Bake in a preheated 350° F oven for 50-60 minutes. Bread is done when it is golden brown. Remove from pans immediately, cool on wire racks.

Yield is 2 loaves. 12 slices per loaf, 100 mg sodium per slice.

Scrambling for taste.

2006-12-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Over the last couple of years I've worked hard at staying within this 2000mg/day salt restriction, sometimes with more success than others. At home it is hard enough, but traveling can be really tough. All the stuff that I love in the convenience stores, is bad for me: chips, pop corn, hot dogs, crackers, I even like those salted prunes you find in Mexican neighborhoods. Some times I just waffle and go for the chips, five sometimes, eight hundred mg of sodium at a shot. Sometimes I buy the chips, the smallest bag I can find and dump about half the bag in the trash before I even start, because there is no way that I am going to stop once I start. A stupid hot dog is about 900 mg. of sodium. I really haven't solved the convenience store problem. I just try to stay away or get in and get out as fast as I can. I do better when we are traveling and can find a big supermarket with more choices.

But at home I am winning the battle. I've found several ways to spice things up that really help. I've always liked hot sauces, every thing from the fairly mild Tabasco to salsas in Mexican restaurants that raise blisters on your tongue and bring tears to your eyes. My favorite hot sauce currently is something called Sriracha Hot Chile Sauce. Lots of flavor, 100 mg of sodium /teaspoon, but you don't use it by the teaspoon, you use it by the drop. Working in El Paso I watched the Mexican kids dousing their popcorn with hot sauce. So I now use this one on my popcorn. Very tasty, so much taste in fact that you forget you aren't salting that popcorn. This hot sauce looks like something you would find in the oriental food shops but I get mine at Safeway. Bottle has a rooster on the front and lots of writing in oriental languages.

Another resource for our neglected taste buds are a series of bottled sauces made by Fischer & Wieser. These are very nice tasty sauces that come in lots of different flavors. Most of them are low to no sodium. My favorite is Chipolte Raspberry. I stocked up on these at supermarkets when I was in Houston and Amarillo, Texas. You can buy them online but you will find them a bit pricey. The supermarket prices were cheaper than on line. If you can find these try 'em. And let us know where you find them.

Chipotle Corn Soup

2006-12-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

Aieeee! This is a good one. This soup was my supper tonight, along with the last of a loaf of the No-Knead Bread. Again an adaptation. I started with a recipe that looked really good, but it called for canned creamed corn. I didn't have any canned creamed corn and didn't want to drive 30 miles down the mountain, in the dark, dodging elk, to my not-so-nearby Safeway, so I improvised. I had plenty of frozen corn, and integrated my own white sauce. Try this one.

As always you may want to make your own adjustments. I like it hot so I use a whole chipotle chile (canned), but recommend starting with a half if you prefer something a bit milder. Shouldn't be hard to multiply the recipe if you've many mouths to feed, but don't get carried away with the chipotles until you know what you are doing. For two generous servings you need:

1 T flour
1 T unsalted butter
1 small onion, chopped
2 T olive oil
1/2 chipolte chile, minced
1 C milk
2 C frozen corn
2 C low sodium vegetable broth
1 bay leaf
Pepper to taste

I start by making a white sauce for thickening the soup. Melt the butter in a small saute pan and then whisk in the flour. Heat the mixture gently for a few minutes until it just barely begins to darken. Watch it carefully, when it starts to brown it can go quickly. Next gradually whisk in the milk until you have a nice smooth sauce. Set this aside and keep it warm.

In a 2 quart sauce pan saute the onions in the oil and butter for about 10 minutes, until transluscent. Add the chile, and heat for a couple more minutes. Next stir in your white sauce. Add the vegetable broth, the corn, and the bay leaf. Season with Pepper. Simmer for about 15 minutes, rescue the bay leaf and serve. Two generous servings. About 350 mg sodium per serving.

Soda Bread Link

2006-12-08T21:22:00.001-07:00

Check out the comment on the No-Knead Low Sodium Bread post. Our commenter really liked the bread and immediately went to work to come up with a way to accelerate the process. And on that same author's blog, Carpe Diem, you can find a soda bread recipe. (A bit more sodium in this one, probably about 170mg per slice.) I was in Ireland last march and decided that soda bread is a staple there, second only to Guiness.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

2006-12-08T10:15:00.000-07:00

I really do stick to my daily sodium limit (2000 mg), well, most days. And, that often leaves me hankering for something with some real taste. One of the places I’ve found real taste is in Thai Peanut Sauce. Great stuff on steamed vegetables, like a combination of zucchini, yellow squash, and onions. But as might be expected, the off the shelf Peanut Sauce I found had a lot of sodium, 250 mg/T.

So here we go with another of Ms. Duncan’s recipes, a homemade low sodium Peanut Sauce.

You will need:
• 3 T peanut butter, unsweetened, unsalted
• 2 T rice wine vinegar
• 1 T chopped cilantro (optional)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 t soy sauce, reduced salt
• 1 t light brown sugar
• 1/2 t chile oil
• 2-4 T warm water
Combine all of the ingredients (except the water) and whisk together, adding enough water to make it the consistency you want.

Makes a half cup, which would be 8 Tablespoons. About 37 mg of sodium/T compared to my off the shelf bottle which weighs in at 250 mg / Tablespoon.

That’s the basic recipe, which I always consider a starting point. I’ve lived a big chunk of my life in the southwest and my taste buds have a pretty high heat tolerance, so I up the chile oil to a full teaspoon. This one is quick and easy so it’s no big deal to start experimenting. I really like this stuff and will be tweaking the recipe to suit my own tastes. Let me know how you like it and what adjustments, if any, you make.

Is it OK to Eat Green Potatoes?

2006-12-07T01:49:00.000-07:00

Is it OK to eat green potatoes?

Why should you keep watermelons out of the refrigerator?

Which are more nutritious, raw carrots or cooked carrots?

Harold McGee knows the answers and writes about the science of food and cooking: where our foods come from, what they are and what they’re made of, and how cooking transforms them. He has a huge book, On Food & Cooking: The Science & Lore of the Kitchen, and Bill Buford, author of Heat, will tell you why you should own and read this book. Bills pitch for the book on NPR’s All Things Considered is fun to read and to hear.

I’m not going to buy this book. Too big, to much, can’t afford it, lots of excuses, but I am going to follow what’s going on at CURIOUS COOK exploring the science of food and its transformations with Harold McGee

No-Knead Low Sodium Bread

2006-12-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Don’t eat much store bought bread any more. Have become accustomed to the taste and texture, and aroma of home baked bread, and can’t really match that off the shelf at the supermart. So for a long time I’ve been baking bread, and find that the whole bake-your-own bread process is much easier and much more forgiving than I had imagined.

For starters here is a really great no-knead bread with an amazingly simple recipe. You need flour, yeast, salt and water, that’s it. Now this has to be a really old and basic recipe, going back to the days shortly after somebody learned how to mash wheat into flour, but the current version comes from Jim Lahey, at the Sullivan Street Bakery, and is blogged all over the internet. Here is the Murphy low sodium version.

Mix together the dry ingredients
• 3 C flour (I’ve tried white and wheat, liked the white better)
• 1/4 teaspoon yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (1200 mg sodium)
Add
• 1 5/8 C water
Stir until all the all of the flour is wet and sticky

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise 18 hours in a warm room. The original recipe says a warm room is about 70°F but our place is 60° over night and mid 60’s, sometimes 70° during that day, and this dough rises OK.

Dough is ready when the surface is dotted with bubbles. Dump it out onto a floured surface, dust the top of the dough with flour, cover it with plastic wrap and let it rise about 2 hours.

Put an oven proof bowl, casserole, or dutch oven, with a lid in your oven and heat to 450°F (Original recipe calls for 6 to 8 qt capacity, I get along just fine with an old oven proof 4 qt mixing bowl and lid I bought at the library thrift shop)

When the dough is ready, carefully (450° is hot, real hot. I use my fire place gloves.) remove your pot or bowl from the oven and dump in the dough. Might not look great at this point but have faith.

Cover with a lid and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until the loaf is browned and looks good to you. Cool on a rack.

If you could cut 12 equal slices (which I can’t, because I end up with this really gorgeous crusty round loaf) each slice would contain 100 mg of sodium. No fat, no cholesterol, and about 3g of protein per slice.

Wood Fire and Foodies

2006-12-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I let the wood fire go out early. I had a evening meeting in town, about 30 miles down the mountain from here, and didn’t feel like reviving the fire when I got back. So it’s a little chilly in here this morning while I wait for the new fire to start pushing the temperature up into the mid 60’s.

Parked in front of the fireplace with my laptop, thank god for wireless, I popped over to one of my favorites, Maria Duncan’s Blog, Book Reviews for Real People. Maria calls herself a “foodie” and manages to read and review a pretty good sampling of food books, 15 of them to date on her blog. So how have I frittered away a sizable chunk of my morning already? Yep. Reading book reviews about food, and enjoying myself. Next food book on my list is Heat, by Bill Bufford.

Quick Easy Low Sodium Tomato Sauce

2006-12-05T11:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a basic, tomato sauce for pasta and pizza. It will make about 3 2-person servings, which can be frozen in separate containers. Sodium per serving in this one, very low.

1 28-oz can diced or crushed tomatoes, no salt added
1/4 c finely diced onion
1 garlic clove, minced
2-4 T olive oil
fresh pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients except pepper in wide skillet. Simmer for 20-30 min, stirring occasionally. Season with pepper to taste. And . . . if you are yearning for a more spicy version, add another clove or two of garlic, or up the heat with a bit of chili oil, your favorite hot sauce, or a sprinkling of ground red chili.

Total sodium 270 mg. Six servings. 45 mg of sodium per serving

Thanks to Maria Duncan for this one.

Cut Sodium with a Power Juicer

2006-12-04T21:09:00.000-07:00

I love pitchmen. You know, the guys who stand up on a platform and demonstrate the wonders of slicers and dicers. They make it look so easy to slice those tomatoes, turn that potato into french fries, and saw right through those packages of frozen spinach.

The guy on the TV who sells the knives is really good. Even though I knew better I bought $45 dollars worth of knives. The pitch was great, the knives were . . . well, hardly worth the money. But there were a lot of them.

And then there is the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, which sells for about a hundred dollars on TV. Bought that too. And I like it! It really does work just like they show it on TV. It has a chute big enough to pop in a medium size tomato or an apple. It instantly turns celery, carrots, whatever you dump in, into juice and pulp. Drop in a couple of tomatoes, a stalk of celery, and a carrot and you have a great veggie drink. Now spice it up with a dash or two of your favorite hot sauce and you have a veggie drink that competes with that canned spicy V-8 I used to drink. The difference is that 5.5 ounces of V-8, has 290 mg of sodium. (50 mg of sodium/ounce). Your fresh Jack LaLanne Power Juicer drink, about 8 ounces has 100mg of sodium (12 mg of sodium/ounce).

Slight problem with the juicer, that Jack didn’t seem to know about, is that it is a bit awkward to clean. You have to take it apart and scoop out the pulp from several different parts. It’s going to take you at least 10 minutes of steady work to get the thing clean and dry. So far, seems worth it to me.

If you are shopping for a juicer, I’d recommend this one, if you can handle the somewhat tedious cleaning routine. Shouldn’t cost over a hundred dollars. If you have access to Costco, buy it there. ($99) If you don’t like it they will take it back no questions asked.

Yoda Says

2006-12-04T19:57:00.000-07:00

“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”

Finding a Good Kitchen Scale

2006-12-01T22:52:00.000-07:00

If you are serious about following a low sodium diet you will need to keep track of your daily sodium intake. A good kitchen scale will make tracking easier and more accurate. If you are shopping for a scale here’s what you need to find:

• A scale with a digital readout.
• A scale that switches easily from ounces to grams.
• A scale that allows you put a container on the scale and then reset to zero.
• A scale that comes with its own removable easy to clean container.

I am using a Salter electronic kitchen scale that I’ve had for almost 3 years. It has all of the above features and is still using the original battery. I think I paid about $40 dollars for it.

Murphy's Pico de Gallo

2006-12-01T19:49:00.000-07:00

When I first started trying to eat and cook without salt I was dying for something that tasted like something. Here is one of my first solutions, a an easy Pico de Gallo, that you can use on a baked potato or as a dip for a few low salt chips or wherever you need a little bright spot for your taste buds.

You need
• One big or two small tomatoes
• A medium to small onion
• About a half bunch of cilantro
• One fresh jalepeno pepper
• One garlic clove
• The juice of one lime

Chop everything in a food chopper and mix together. Adjust the ingredients as your tastes dictate. Let this sit a couple of hours and the garlic will give it a nice kick. Use more or less jalepeno depending on your love for heat.

Now just for fun go to the Nutrition Facts and Calorie Counter and find the individual amounts of sodium for each ingredient. And if that doesn't seem terribly entertaining, I'll tell you that if you eat the whole batch at one sitting, you've only consumed 16 mg of sodium. Essentially this is a no sodium food.