American Heart Association's Low-Salt Cookbook

Low-salt eating may seem like a culinary prison people get sentenced to by their doctors in order to stabilize an unhealthy diet, but there really isn't any reason why you can't be more proactively salt-conscious without sacrificing variety and taste.  The American Heart Association has several editions of its Low-Salt Cookbook series, but the one from 2006/2007 (3rd Edition) features a particularly diverse selection of recipes.  There are nutritional and psychological tips to help transition into better eating patterns, along with healthier, natural salt/seasoning substitutes and flavor enhancers.

Recipes include Potato Skin Nachos and Red Bell Pepper Crostini, Melon-Berry Kebabs and Horseradish and Dill Sour Cream Dip among the Appetizers and Snacks; Gazpacho, Minestrone, Corn and Green Chile are among the Soups (there are also recipes for making your own lower sodium Beef, Chicken and Vegetable stock base broths); Salads and Salad Dressings include Spicy Shrimp Salad, Asian Brown Rice and Vegetable Salad, Summer Pasta Salad, Southwestern Black-Eyed Pea Salad, Red Potato Salad, Ranch Dressing with Fresh Herbs and Cider Vinaigrette; and then there are plenty of seafood (like Pecan Crusted Catfish with Zesty Tartar Sauce), poultry (e.g., Blackberry and Balsamic Chicken), beef (e.g., Sirloin with Red Wine and Mushroom Sauce) and vegetarian (Crustless Garden Quiche, Eggplant Lasagna, Fettuccine Alfredo) offerings.

The cookbook also has chapters for Breads and Breakfast Dishes and a nice assortment of desserts, such as Denver Chocolate Pudding Cake, Caramel Flan, Deep-Dish Cherry Pie and Strawberry Banana Sorbet.  And because condiments tend to be high in sodium or if low in sodium they tend to be lacking in zing, there are recipes for homemade ketchup, chili sauce, barbecue sauce, tartar sauce, mustard and mayonnaise that -- as the book suggests -- may make you "wonder why you ever bought the bottled kind."

a teacup's worth of risotto

This delightful little recipe for Risotto à la Milanese is from the London Vegetarian Society's circa 1891 cookbook:

Take a teacupful of rice, wash it thoroughly and dry it.  Chop up a small onion and put it in the bottom of a small stew-pan and fry the onion to a high-brown colour.  Now add the dry rice, and stir this up with the onion and butter till the rice also is fried of a nice light-brown colour.  Now add two breakfastcupfuls of stock or water and a pinch of powdered saffron, about sufficient to cover a threepenny-piece; let the rice boil for ten or eleven minutes, move the saucepan to the side of the fire and let is stand for twenty minutes or half an hour till it has absorbed all the stock or water.  Now mix in a couple of tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese.  Flavour with a little pepper and salt, and serve the whole very hot.