Veggie-Balls and Spaghetti

Living with a vegetarian encourages me to try out some tasty low-salt veggie recipes that we can both have for dinner. Here is one of our favourites.

Ingredients for 2 people:

* 2 medium sized potatoes
* 1 carrot
* 4 small button mushrooms
* half finely chopped onion
* 1 cup of flour
* 1 tablespoon of olive oil
* 2 teaspoons ground pepper
* 2 teaspoons ground cumin
* 2 teaspoons dried basil
* 1.5 cups of plain flour
* quarter to half packet of spaghetti
* half jar of your favourite low salt pasta sauce (I buy Australian brand Naked Foods Traditional Pasta Sauce containing 0mg of sodium but it is also easy to make your own pasta sauce here)

* Preheat oven to 200 degrees c (approx 390 degrees f).
* Grate the potatoes, carrots and mushrooms into a large container or pan.
* Add in the olive oil, flour, pepper, basil and cumin and stir with a large spoon until a thick sticky mixture forms.
* Roll by hand into small-medium sized balls, cover the ball in some plain flour, and place on a well-oiled baking tray - approximately 15-18 balls will be made with the above ingredients.
* Cook for 40 minutes on 200 degrees c or until the veggie balls have hardened.
* 30 minutes after placing the veggie balls in the oven, start cooking spaghetti as per packet instructions.
* When the veggie balls are ready, heat the pasta sauce in a saucepan for 2 minutes and then place balls into the pan, mix around gently for 1 minute so as the balls are fully covered with the sauce and then pour on top of spaghetti.
* You can add any vegetable(s) on top - we eat ours with a serving of brocolli.

Low Salt Chicken Stir Fry

This is one of my low-salt staples - I have it at least once a week. And it only takes 15 to 20 minutes to cook.

Ingredients for 1 person:

* 2 medium sized chicken thigh pieces (for vegetarians replace chicken with plain hard tofu)
* half a small carrot
* half a small zucchini
* 5 button mushrooms
* a hand-full of snow peas
* 6 florets of brocolli
* 1 chilli
* quarter onion
* 1 teaspoon each of sugar, cumin, cardomom and dried basil
* 1 cup of rice or quarter/half packet of dried rice noodles.
* 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:
* Place sugar, cumin, cardomom and basil into a bowl and mix together.
* Cut the chicken thigh into small cube-like pieces and place into the bowl - make sure the chicken is fully smothered in the spice mixture.
* Chop all the vegetables and place together in a seperate bowl.
* Boil the rice or noodles in water and cook as per the packet directions.
* Fry the chicken in olive oil until it starts to go brown, then remove from saucepan and put aside - don't overcook as the chicken will be placed back in the stir fry later.
* In the juices that have been left in the saucepan cook the onion and chillies until the onions start turning brown.
* Add in the chopped carrots, zucchini, mushrooms and snow peas into the saucepan and start stir frying on a medium heat for 5 minutes.
* Place the chicken back in the mix stir well for another 2-3 minutes
* Serve the chicken and vegetable stir-fry on top of the bed of rice or noodes.

Sodium content: approximately 270mg total.