@da_667 I feel that one. At least our lab readily takes walk-ins so I can go early. Pre-coffee and food me does not appreciate having to wait until later in the day to get poked.

@da_667 Yikes!

@da_667 hopefully not a fasting required one

@da_667 ah, the docs here tend to off-site bloodwork, so I get to cope with the vague "you should do it sometime in two weeks before the office visit"

And...Usually forget until 3 days before, so booking labs sucks.

@da_667
Low salt is the hardest. Its. In. EVERYTHING. As you already know. We Americans really like our salt.
@mattblaze

@da_667 I can highly recommend the Penn Medicine nephrology practice (at the main hospital), if a Philly doctor is in any way convenient for you.

@da_667 fuckin medical admin bullshit, I swear it's responsible for a billion years of cumulative human suffering.

@da_667 @mattblaze The only real solution (that I've found) to the low-sodium problem is to make everything yourself from ingredients. Use as few pre-packaged foods as possible (this includes like canned vegetables or pre-made tomato sauce). It's a huge pain in the ass at first, but after a couple months you start getting into the swing of it and it gets easier.

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze happy to kick down more recipes for super easy to make stuff where you control all the ingredients!

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze if you can make one or two different types of bread, you can just skip the salt in that dough - its not required, and if you can make like, dinner rolls and a basic loaf? suddenly you have ...

ᶠᵒᵒᵒᵒᵈ ˢᵘᵇˢᵗʳᵃᵗᵉ

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze

once you can do burger/sausage buns, and loaves, suddenly stuff like tuna salad sammiches happen, and turkey/chicken burgers/meatballs. you can take your stuffed bell pepper recipe and prolly chuck turkey meatballs into that and call it a meatball sammich. it sorta turns into lego after a certain point

@da_667 The prep and pre-planning you have to do are the most arduous parts imo. I'm not Gordon Ramsey, I'm not waking up at 5am to go to the fish market to get fresh salmon. But it does really benefit to have some idea of what your week's dinners are going to be when you go shopping so you can plan teh fresh veg and meat intake without having to rely on pre-frozen/pre-packaged stuff.

I used the Sidekick app for a good while to help with this because it's really good about giving you recipe's that only take 20-mins to cook for the whole week and then building you a shopping list of exactly what and how much of it you need.

@da_667 have you ever considered a chicken/turkey ballotine? it looks super cool, and its pretty easy to make :D

@da_667 its dead simple. the hardest part is cutting the chicken/turkey into the correct shape. then you sorta stuff it with whatever you want, give it an egg wash (if you want a little crispy layer on the outside) and bake it. if you make one big enough, hey slice a bit off that and chuck it onto one of your dinner rolls, with some low sodium gravy or sauce or something and you got yourself a pretty fancy slider!

@da_667

AND I ALWAYS SAY:

if you can debone a chicken

you can debone a person!

so learn how to debone a chicken and practice a few times! You'll find a ballotine is way way easier to do if youre doing it to an entire chicken :D

i learned by watching chef pepin a very long time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN8xn152NXA

@da_667 but i guess if youre doing a whole chicken its a galentine, not a ballotine? but same sorta deal. bones go out, moopsy style, noms go in, not.. uh.. moopsy style.

@da_667 fun fact: before 2021, i was planning a foodie infosec con in sf with a dozen people. the idea was that we round up some sponsors and rent a test kitchen, the folks who can do cookery all volunteer to do various bits of cheffery, and folks teach others how to cook and talk shop and share intel over kitchen faffery time. but it evaporated, sadly. woulda been a cool idea tho

@da_667 right? i thought so too. but.. influencers.

@chillybot @da_667 @mattblaze obligatory plug that Penzeys spices has some solid No Salt blends.

But, yeah, salt finds its way into the weirdest things. Like, poultry products (esp ground turkey from what I’ve seen, but also found this in chicken breasts) will have salt added. Just to plump everything up.

@da_667 yeah, i presented at the first one and made crepes, but after that suddenly every time i submit my submission got lost or was overlooked, so i quit

@da_667 @mattblaze Oh shit, I just saw a clip about something that could help. It’s a YouTube short (eww) but there is a technique to boost salt flavor with mild electrical currents https://youtube.com/shorts/8vEOgYh8PjM

@da_667 @mattblaze also avoid the fuck out of pink salts. They’re usually mined from potash deposits in Pakistan. They’re KCl, and I nearly had a health scare related to them a few years back.

@da_667 @Viss @chillybot @mattblaze If you have a pressure cooker, this one is utterly amazing. https://www.seriouseats.com/colombian-chicken-stew-with-potatoes-tomato-onion-recipe
A lot of Kenji recipes are great. Stella Parks for any sweet tooth dessert recipes are also pretty much guaranteed to be amazing.

I also appreciate a lot of recipes over at nomnompaleo (she has a lot of paleo, whole30, keto and others) with the main benefit being controlling stuff going in. I really like this chili recipe
https://nomnompaleo.com/2017052320170523instant-pot-ground-beef-chili

If you like Indian cuisine, Two sleevers, aka the butter chicken lady, is so amazingly quick and easy.

https://twosleevers.com/instant-pot-butter-chicken/