Hi all! Hoping you guys have some thoughts/recipes to add to my repertoire.

I made this dish last week for a lunch w/my cousin.

It was delicious but it really used a lot of soy sauce and sesame oil. She's my size 0 nursing mom cousin so I'm not so concerned about calories when hosting her although I was sort of worried about how much sodium I served her (she laughed and said, "I don't look at that stuff!" ah, the beauty of youth and genetics). Anyway, I loved that the meal was totally assembled and in my fridge when she arrived and we whipped it out and ate as the baby allowed.

I'm sure I could strip down some of the bothersome ingredients etc. but I was hoping some of you might have ideas for other dishes that prepare well ahead of time and are so easy to make a beautiful presentation. I have been entertaining a lot lately and most of my guests don't have the freedom to eat something this generous in sodium! Not to mention, I shouldn't be making a habit of it.

BTW, I'll be glad to post the recipe if anyone does have an occasion for it. It is from a cookbook the local Junior League puts out so it's unlikely you'll find it elsewhere (although something similar I'm sure is around).

Peg

mmmmm, thanks D! Those look awesome!

Peg

KD's strata recipe is infinitely adaptable to brunch, lunch, and dinner dishes, and is lovely when served alongside a bright salad, raspberries, blood orange slices, or anything that compliments/contrasts with the sunny yellow color it ends up being.

It's largely make-ahead; the cooking really only requires one checkup, and I think that's 10 or 20 minutes before it's done.

I flipped through my MasterCook "Tried and True" cookbook I put together, and have these in there as well with a note that they've worked well for entertaining:
Salmon w/ Marmalade-Dijon Glaze
Cheese Pie with Peppers (fairly labor-intensive to start, but can be made ahead and refrigerated, then cooked an extra 10 minutes or so)
Beef & Vegetable Potpie (another that takes some prep time, but can be made ahead of time, refrigerated, and heated up later. Best served in a bowl, so it's not an "elegant" company dinner.)

I did use the lower sodium soy sauce but LOTS of it. It didn't help that my appetizer was dumplings that I made a soy sauce based sauce for.

Good suggestion on adding it later. Obviously won't help for marinating the salmon but on the noodles, that might have worked well. The disadvantage there is you lose the 'pull from fridge, serve' aspect but certainly could try that when making it for myself.

Peg

Have you tried low sodium soy sauce? I can't tell the difference, myself.

It looks REALLY yummy!!!

I have had VERY good results by leaving soy sauce and sesame oil out of the recipes while I'm cooking it...

AND then when I'm ready to eat the food... I put 1/4th or 1/2 tsp of sesame oil on the food, and 1/2 to 2 tsp of "lite sodium" soy sauce on the food.

I find that if I put it on the food at the table... I can taste it MUCH better and use WAY less of both ingredients.

I also just finished Ken Hom's Easy Family Recipes from a Chinese-American Childhood (from the library).
http://www.amazon.com/Family-Recipes-Chinese-American-C...id=1214849176&sr=8-3

(Was a great book!... lots of really good recipes. First part of the book reminded me of some of Iz's posts )

He says that Chinese in China don't dump cups of soy sauce on the food, the way Americans do or American Chinese restaurants do. Made me feel better that I've been doing it the "right" way for a couple/three years now.

But when you put the soy on while cooking... the salt seems to be absorbed... and then it needs more and more and more. And I've found adding it at the last minute to work really well.