Who do you think will be The Next Food Network Star: Martie, Yvan, Michele or Justin? Did you go online and vote?

I’ve been watching this show from the very first episode. After seeing all four test pilots last Sunday, it’s hard for me to decide who would win. Out of all of the food that was fixed last Sunday, I liked Michele’s dish the best. I’m not a big mac and cheese fan, which is why I wasn’t too crazy about Yvan’s dish. Although I do love shrimp, I didn’t like the way Martie tossed her shrimp with all of that stuff for her dish. I did think it was interesting that she’d baked her shrimp – gives me another option for making shrimp. Justin made an aspic? This is something that I’d never heard of or seen until I’d seen Justin use it? Any of you ever use/make an aspic(?sp) before?

I wish that Leekie (sp?) had not been voted off! I loved that she made desserts and I enjoyed hearing her South African accent! I’d love to see another dessert maker have a show on the Food Network because desserts are my most favorite food to make.

Speaking of food, I’ve been using this cookbook a lot! Somebody on Facebook told me about it and I was hooked! I’ve been using this book for months and it makes baking bread SO EASY!! You make the dough and keep it in the refrigerator and use it whenever you need it. I’ve made sticky buns a few times and I’ve also made the pizza dough countless times.

I’m trying to watch my salt intake, as explained in this blog post. I still eat fast food and we still eat takeout pizza, but, I’ve found a somewhat low-sodium way to make pizza! I make the pizza dough recipe in this book, but, I don’t put any salt in the dough. I also make my own sauce using no-salt-added tomato sauce (I add onions and garlic to the sauce and let it simmer on the stove). When I make my pizza, I roll out my pizza dough, put the sauce on top, then mozzarella cheese, and then on top of that, I place pre-cooked crumbled sausage, pepperoni, and fresh mushrooms.

Granted, the sausage and pepperoni are full of sodium, but, since the other parts of the pizza (sauce and crust) have no salt, there’s not as much salt in this pizza as in the takeout/pizza parlor pizzas. When you eat my version, you don’t really miss the salt, you get enough salt when you taste that pepperoni and sausage! Yum!

Do you have any low-sodium recipes to share? Leave a comment!

~Cecelia Dowdy~