[Mike Nolan]

I tried the baked salmon with dill and couscous today, because my wife had an appointment after work and will pick up something for herself for supper. I didn't have any olive oil, so I used corn oil, butter might have been a better choice. It had a nice salmon flavor, more than what I get when I poach salmon in butter, but without adding salt I think it needs something else, not sure what, maybe some parsley or rosemary. I might try the recipe for two with cod. (My wife's reaction was 'two out of three sound good', she doesn't care for salmon.)

[Mike Nolan]

We had filet mignon, with a baked potato, sauteed mushrooms and a tossed salad. For dessert we have some really sweet strawberries.

[Mike Nolan]

There are ways to vary the Moomies recipe, too. For example you can add a little whole wheat flour or rye flour.

[Mike Nolan]

Unlike restaurants, I generally don't salt burger meat anyway, but the toppings and the bun are where the salt comes in, pickles, cheese, catsup and mustard all have salt in them. Hot dogs, like all sausages, have a fair amount of salt in them. I haven't tried making lowered sodium buns yet, but that'll happen at some point. (I cut the salt in our regular breads by 50% or more.)

With a 1500 mg daily limit, yeah, I can have a burger or a dog from time to time, but probably just one. Sandwiches are going to be a bigger challenge, deli meats are all heavy on salt.

Most days I've been well under my sodium limit. I'm sure I'm eating healthier and also eating less, and as a result I'm down about 20 pounds since late December, most of that in the first two weeks, so it was mostly water weight.

[Mike Nolan]

As I recall, KAF made a minor tweak to the original Moomie's recipe when they reposted it, but you'd have to compare the recipes line by line to notice it. I haven't made it in several years, I preferred the KAF 'chicago style hot dog bun' recipe, even as burger buns. I haven't had a hot dog or a burger in nearly two months as I adjust my diet and taste buds to the sodium restrictions. When warm weather comes, I'm not sure what I'll do, burgers, hot dogs and sandwiches were a large part of our summertime diet.

[Mike Nolan]

I've never had the nerve (or motor skills) to try tossing pizza dough, but hand stretching doesn't compress the dough as much as rolling it does.

[Mike Nolan]

I need to try the baked salmon and couscous recipe, but I'll have to scale it down for one, because my wife doesn't like salmon. (When we have fish, I have salmon and she has orange roughy.)

[Mike Nolan]

Lincoln has had a flurry of pizza places open in the past few years, and another one is opening this Friday in downtown, but most of them use too much garlic in their sauce, some also use it in their crust. And since I'm now limited to one slice of a 12" pizza at a time, due to the sodium content, going to a sit-down pizza place doesn't make much sense any more. (We haven't been big restaurant patrons in quite a while due to garlic issues--it's in EVERYTHING!)

When we lived in Rogers Park and then Evanston, our favorite pizza was a hole-in-the-wall place on Main street, but Gulliver's on Howard was a close second and My Pie (down by the Loyola campus) was another we liked. A lot has happened since we moved to Nebraska in 1977. The hole-in-the-wall place closed (it's a Giordano's take-out place the last time I drove past), Gulliver's changed owners and he change the recipe to use cheaper ingredients, and My Pie moved, though I don't know if that was under the same ownership. A lot of the places on Howard depended on the fact that Evanston was dry, so the college crowd would head there to drink. But Evanston went wet and business at the Howard places suffered. (You can order beer at the student union now!)

The owner of Nancy's sold to a franchise group in 1990 and people tell me it isn't quite as good. I understand there are two Nancy's locations that aren't part of the franchise, they may be better. The last time I was in Chicago, I went to Lou Malnati's River North location, takeout was a 90 minute wait, but it was pretty good.

[Mike Nolan]

I made banana nut mini-muffins last night.

[Mike Nolan]

Back in its heyday, Godfather's Pizza used to advertise that their large pizza had 3 POUNDS of cheese on it.

Nancy's (originally in the western suburbs of Chicago) does a stuffed pizza that looks like a layer cake. One slice is a meal--and then some. It's still arguably the best of the Chicago-style stuffed pizza that Nancy's claims to have invented. (Giordano's also claims that honor, and possibly Lou Malnati's.)

When I was in college, there was a pizza place in Evanston called The Inferno, their specialty was what they called a dubl-dough pizza, the thing had to be at least 4 inches high, not counting the toppings. Somehow, they managed to get all the dough cooked so it wasn't just a raw mass of pizza dough in the middle, and they were very popular among Northwestern students on Sundays, when the dining halls didn't operate.

[Mike Nolan]

The last several times I've made pizza I used the rectangular pizza pan that I got from King Arthur (though I don't see it on their site today) and I stretched the dough out mostly by hand. (I did use a small pastry roller to help get it all the way to the corners.)

But I think the next time I'm going to use the Roman crust recipe from Peter Reinhart's book, "American Pie". It can be stretched so thin it is translucent.

[Mike Nolan]

It depends on what ingredients you use, a pepperoni pizza might cost $5 or so in ingredients.

The big chains use cheaper ingredients bought in bulk, I use whole milk mozzarella--they generally don't. That's how they can afford to sell a pizza for under $10. But as I recall, pizzerias have a higher food cost than most of the restaurant industry; the cost of the ingredients is usually about 40% of the price, but for most sit-down restaurants it's more like 25%.

The local pizzeria we order from most frequently charges about $20 for a 12 inch pizza with several added toppings. Pizza Hut it isn't!

Buying in bulk is the real key, a 15 ounce can of tomato sauce costs about a dollar, a #10 can (about 110 ounces) costs about $2.50. 50 pounds of pizza flour is running about $14 a bag right now. Sams sells 5 pound bags of mozzarella for about $15, but Pizza Hut probably pays about half that.

[Mike Nolan]

I like parm, but not as the only cheese on a pizza, it needs the mootz. Romano cheese is good on pizza, too, as it browns well and adds some pungency. One of the local pizzerias does a really good pizza with mootz and cream cheese, we usually have them add tomatoes and artichoke hearts.

BTW, did you know that Pizza Hut, Domino's, Little Caesars and Papa John's all get cheese from the same supplier? Leprino Foods in Denver, home of possibly the world's most secretive billionaire, James Leprino. Forbes ran an article on him recently: Forbes Article, but even Forbes couldn't get a recent picture of him.

[Mike Nolan]

We've probably drowned more rosemary than we've dried out. We used to try putting them in the kitchen window, but it is north-facing and definitely doesn't get enough light for rosemary, though it seems to be working for orchids.

[Mike Nolan]

Our dining room might work, though my wife would have to give up some of the space for her Christmas cactus plants.

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