Get the Salt Out (32 page)

Place the wheat in a bowl, pour the boiling water over it, and leave to soak for 30 minutes to soften. (It should absorb all the water.) While the bulgur is soaking, combine the oil and lemon juice together with the minced garlic. When the bulgur is ready, add all of the herbs and vegetables and lemon juice-oil mixture to it and mix well. If there’s time, allow to chill for several hours for the best flavor.
Serves 6.

203
What’s sauerkraut without salt?
Both very delicious and extremely healthful. When you make sauerkraut the traditional way, you need a little bit of patience to wait for the results, but the rewards you receive are well worth it—fresh flavor, lots of nutrients, and beneficial enzymes that promote healthy digestion. Use raw sauerkraut as a salad or as a cold side dish to go with sandwiches or oven-fried chicken.
One Salt Shaker.

Pull off the outer leaves of the cabbage and grate the rest. Put the grated cabbage in one mixing bowl, the other vegetables in a second bowl, and the ground herbs, spices, and lemon juice, if using, in a third bowl. Pound the cabbage lightly with a wooden tenderizing mallet. Put a layer of the cabbage a few inches deep in a crock or in a glass or stainless steel pot. Add a similar layer of the vegetable mixture over the cabbage and pack it down. Then sprinkle with the spices or some of the spice-lemon juice mixture. Continue the process with more layers until you are finished with the ingredients and press down each layer so the vegetables will be saturated in their own juice. Allow at least a few inches of space from the top of the pot because the fermenting vegetables are likely to expand. Cover the vegetable mixture on top with the outer leaves of the cabbage, tucking the leaves around the mixture as completely as you can. Put a plate on top that fits nicely in the crock. Then add a weight or a filled glass jar on top of the plate. Place a clean dish towel over the crock and let the fermenting vegetables sit in a well-ventilated room at room temperature for 5
to 7 days. After 5 to 7 days, throw away the old cabbage leaves and any moldy or discolored vegetables on top. Put the remaining sauerkraut in glass jars and refrigerate. This sauerkraut will last a few months in the refrigerator if the glass jars are opened minimally.
Yields several quarts.

204
The biggest problem with salads,
of course, isn’t the vegetables that go in them, but the commercial salad dressings that are put on top of them. If you use two tablespoons of a dressing that contain 200 milligrams of sodium per tablespoon, you consume one-fifth of the total amount of sodium I recommend for most individuals in a single day. What’s worse, the sodium in commercial dressings is unhealthy, being derived from common table salt and sodium additives and preservatives. To keep a healthful salad from turning into a meal with loads of unhealthy sodium, buy low-sodium dressings that are made with sea salt and that do not contain sodium preservatives.
One Salt Shaker.

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Or buy unsalted dressings
like Cardini’s No Salt Added varieties. You always can add natural salt (either unrefined sea salt, Real Salt, sesame salt, herbal salt, or kelp powder) on your own if you need to. (See tips 54, 55, 58, 59, and 60.)
One to Two Salt Shakers.

206
When in doubt, use vinegar and olive oil or lemon juice and olive oil for a dressing.
Either of these are simple but tangy ways to top your salad without salt.
One Salt Shaker.

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Use salt-free
herbal blends
or different medleys of dried herbs
to vary the flavor of either of these basic dressings.
One Salt Shaker.