Tag Archives: cooking

No sodium catchup substitute better than catsup

Posted on July 6, 2014 by | 3 comments

sweet pepper and bells

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.  I’m sitting here dipping home-made no sodium catsup substitute in Art’s & Mary’s no salt homestyle potato chips.

So shoot me.  Fact is, this catsup substitute tastes so much better than catsup a person might as well call catsup a substitute for whatever this como se llama delicious concoction is.  And it’s so damned easy to make they ought to put grocers in jail for carrying the original salt-bomb Hunts, Heinz, you name it catsups on the shelves.  Killing people slowly.

 sweet pepper and bells in blender

What you need to make Como Se Llama?   Sweet peppers and/or Bell peppers of various colors.  A blender.  3/4 cup apple cider vinegar.  A cup of sugar, or however much less you prefer.  A tablespoon of black pepper.

sweet pepper and bells blended

Blend it until it’s all liquid, adding the sugar and vinegar while it’s blending.  I use unground peppercorn and let the blending reduce the grain size with everything else.

sweet pepper and bells ireducing

Once that’s done all you need to do is put it over medium heat and bring it to a boil, then let it simmer until it’s reduced approximately 1/3, but mainly is the thickness you prefer in a Como se Llama.  Keep it in mind you’re using it for a dip.

If it gets so you’re on the road or for come other reason can’t make Como se Llama, you can always stop into a grocery store and buy a bottle of catsup for a temporary substitute.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in Food

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Preparing dried peppers for kitchen use

Posted on July 5, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

Does it bother you when you go to a restaurant, order something spicy, and the plate comes with a bunch of cockroach-sized peppers intact scattered into the food?  No way of eating them if you still own your appendix and want to continue in that vein.

Ancho is a favorite of mine because they aren't much hotter than bell peppers, but they have a strong flavor. Dusky, smoky flavor. But only rarely will you find them fresh.

Ancho is a favorite of mine because they aren’t much hotter than bell peppers, but they have a strong flavor. Dusky, smoky flavor. But only rarely will you find them fresh.

Same applies for home cooking.  Some of the best, such as anchos, can only rarely be found fresh.  And using them dried requires some preparation if you want to taste the flavor.

 

The blender beats any other method I've ever found for reducing them to a worthy size. Unless it's the heat you're after, such as with habenero. But that's an entirely different story.

The blender beats any other method I’ve ever found for reducing them to a worthy size. Unless it’s the heat you’re after, such as with habenero. But that’s an entirely different story.

Enter, the blender.  No need to dig out the mortar and pistle.  It wouldn’t work anyway.

ancho grinding 1

Starting with low speeds seems to work best.

ancho grinding 2

Be patient and hang in there.  You’ll be able to see the particle sizes decreasing.

`ancho ground

Eventually you’ll end up with this.  Ready to use ancho, not ground enough to qualify as molido, a bit coarse, but with enough surface areas exposed to bring out the flavor.

I suspect one of the reasons so few people use dried peppers is a result  of not knowing what the hell to do with them.  Reducing the particle size enough to bring out the flaver and render them capable of being digested helps.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in Adventure, Food

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Delicious low sodium hamburger

Posted on July 1, 2014 by | 2 comments

Hi readers.  I just devoured one of these  and can testify there’s none better.

  1. When you make up your ground beef patties use onion powder as a flour to separate the patties.  But first sprinkle on lime powder, coriander, black pepper.
  2. Thaw one Pattie and cook or grill it.
  3. Using two slices of low sodium sandwich bread paste on home-made catsup [no sodium] made from sweet peppers and rice vinegar blended and boiled.
  4. Prepare the bread surface with no sodium catsup below cilantro, chopped green onions and spinach leaves on one slice.
  5. If you like mustard, mix a tablespoon of mustard flour with equal amount of water and spread on the surface of the remaining bread slice.
  6. Place the meat, cooked to taste, on the bread with the spinach, cilantro, and green onion, then cover it all with the slice covered with mustard.

Beats hell out of traditional hamburgers and you only get the salt that came naturally in the ground beef, plus 30-60 mg of salt in each slice of bread.

Old Jules

Afterthought:  If you don’t have an economical source for lime juice powder and onion flour [powder] you can buy it by the pound from www.FirehousePantryStore.com  – the mixture of onion flour and lime juice powder is the absolute best substitute for salt I’ve found, bar none.  Beats the stuff sold as salt substitutes such as wossname, Madam Upso Salt and Mr. Ersatz Sodium all to hell.

 

2 Comments

Posted in Food

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Onion ice cubes, jalapeno ice cubes

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 16 comments

onion ice cube jalapeno ice cube

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.  This is an idea of mine that worked out really well.  Hell, it wasn’t my idea.  It was Jeanne’s.  But I’m the one put that whole bag of onions in the blender, liquified them, and poured them into ice cube trays.  Jeanne just thought of it because the onions go bad so quickly these days.

Anyway, even before the low sodium fanaticism and the sexual experimentation with various foods that followed, counting sodium mgs the way other people count calories, even before that I used a LOT of onions, a lot of jalapeno [and other peppers].

But Jeanne’s ice cube idea throws the entire thing into a new realm.  A new threshold, new horizon of culinary potential.  And you don’t have to chop them every damned time you get hungry and start searching for something to cook.

The onions turn into tiny onion chips when thawed, and a lot of onion juice.  They make an onion broth quicker than I can type it.  And the jalapeno ice cube are great anywhere.  Shove a popsicle stick into them and you have a jalapeno popsicle.  Otherwise just use them the way you’d normally use a jalapeno shaped like an ice cube.

Remember where you heard it first.  It was here.  Not Jeanne’s Library blog.  But if I could think of a way to keep them from melting I’d send some postcard style to her Johnson County Library Postcard Art project.  Because damn me, these are art.  Tastiest damned art I’ve ever eaten.

Old Jules

 

16 Comments

Posted in 2014, America

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Amazingly toothsome no-sodium/low sodium salad

Posted on June 29, 2014 by | 2 comments

great salad

Hi readers.  Jeanne suggested I take a picture of this and post it.  I’m not certain why.  I just got sort of carried away making that salad and as always, it turned out toothsome.

Spinach, bean sprouts, frozen grapes, frozen cranberries, sesame seeds, chopped celery, celery seed, chopped carrots and sweet peppers, raw peanuts and snow peas [chopped].  Dressing is rice vinegar and olive oil with a dose of minced garlic and some ginger.

Takes a lot to fill the void, but the sour from the cranberries discourages over indulging.  Not unpleasantly, but insistently.  This one made two meals, second one as appealing as the first.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

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Cooking Thermos Bottle Beans and Rice

Posted on September 17, 2012 by | 4 comments

I came across this on the cheaprvliving forum and decided to give it a try. 

http://www.cheaprvlivingforum.com/post/Cooking-with-a-Nissan-Thermos-5995048?trail=15

I’m making a breakfast of garbanzo beans and rice cooked by that method even as I type this.  Seems to me there are some kinks to be worked out, but overall it’s a shockingly easy, economical, energy-efficient way to cook up a simple meal.

4 Comments

Posted in 2012, America, Solitude, Survival

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Super Baked Fish Recipe

Posted on August 17, 2012 by | 6 comments

I used the Vietnamese Pan-something-or-other fish I told you about on earlier posts.

Bed the bottom of the pan with half-dozen corn tortillas,

1 each frozen fish filet

1 cup frozen green beans

1 cup frozen brocolli

1/4 cup tropical trail mix

Generic Cajun seasoning to taste

1/4 stick butter on top

Bake 60-90 minutes at 350 F.

You can be the second person in the Universe ever to try it if you hurry.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2012

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