Lunch at Ikea

You know the deal: you move and all of a sudden you need bits and pieces of crap. And where else would you go to find said bits and pieces of crap besides Ikea (if you have one available to you, and I do now)? Luckily, my dad loves Ikea and whenever he's down here, he likes to go there and putter around for a few hours. He particularly likes Ikea's cafeteria. He drove me back from the Kootenays when I went to visit last month, and he stayed a few extra days to visit with my brother & SIL. I needed bits and pieces of crap for my new place, and Dad wanted to putter around. He also loves Ikea's food section & buys coffee beans from there whenever he can. We spent over 3 hours in Ikea one rainy afternoon, and started out with lunch.

There really wasn't anything on the menu that appealed to me, so I went with this Naiad Salad plate consisting of gravalax and a root vegetable salad in a citrus vinaigrette. It was accompanied by two crackers. For dessert, I had a piece of apple cake.

The salmon dish cost $7.95 or something ridiculous like that, and it came with a lot of gravalax! You wouldn't be able to buy that amount of salmon lox in the grocery store for that price. It was very good as was the root vegetable salad. The apple cake was OK. My dad had a bunch of things but I didn't get a picture. He was very happy indeed. Until we had to try to fit a flat-packed bookcase in his Subaru. But that's another story. :)

Sockeye Salmon Three Ways

At the tail end of August, one of my fellow cooks at the senior's residence came by our work with an offer I could not refuse: he was selling freshly caught sockeye salmon for $10 each. At the same time, I happened to know that the Local Overpriced Grocery Store (aka LOGS) was selling whole sockeyes for about $22 - $24 each. So, I bought one sockeye from my colleague. I should have bought more.

The fish was cleaned and gutted and headless, but needed filleting. So, after work, I went to LOGS, which has an excellent set of butchers, and asked one of the guys there how to fillet the darned thing. He said, "I'll just do it for you. It'll be quicker." I told him I had not purchased the salmon from the store, but he didn't mind. He went a head and filleted the fishy for me while I watched so I could learn. I then went home and cut eight portions from the fish! What a screaming deal! I should have gotten more from my colleague, but at the time I had no idea what I was getting. Oh well.

I have had a few meals from this salmon, and they were all awesome. I took some camping for Shan & me, and that was lovely. But at home, I have prepared this salmon three different ways.

Exhibit #1: Salmon with Key Lime seasoning from World Market (love that stuff!), rice, and Asian coleslaw (coleslaw mix, seasoned rice vinegar, sesame oil).

Totally awesome meal, very easy & quick to prepare, and healthy to boot.





Exhibit #2: Grilled sockeye with maple, soy, and ginger glaze.

Oh, this was absolutely divine! The glaze was easy: maple syrup, soy sauce, and a few drops of ginger oil my dad bought for me at the Nelson Farmer's Market in July. I served this also with rice and the same Asian coleslaw.





Exhibit #3: Salmon & Shrimp Chowder.

Oh, how I love a good seafood chowder, and this was another winner! Very simple to make, and I found some cheap back bacon at LOGS to go in it. I got a huge pot of soup that made me about 8 servings, and for it I used the two tail ends of the sockeye, about half a pound of shrimp, and a couple frozen pieces of chum salmon I had kicking around my freezer that I had purchased at Safeway a while back. God, the difference between the sockeye and the chum is ridiculous! I don't think I'll ever buy chum that way again - it's just pathetic in comparison to the sockeye!

"What To Do With A...": Salmon Melts

I haven't done a post in this series for a while, mainly because I haven't had so many bits & pieces hanging around my fridge, freezer, and pantry lately. But, some time ago, I did purchase a can of sockeye salmon on sale for $2.99 - and it was a larger can, not one of the tuna-sized cans. It was a deal I couldn't refuse, so I went for it. And the can sat there, and sat there...I also had half a brick of cream cheese in the freezer, left over from some long-forgotten baking project. And then I did a column for Bread 'n Molasses featuring my mom's salmon spread, an old family Christmas treat (upcoming in the November issue) ...And inspiration hit! If you can have tuna melts, why not salmon melts? Off I went to get some mozzarella and some English muffins.

Here is what I did:

1 can (large) sockeye salmon
1/2 brick cream cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp dried dill
3 sliced green onions.
a few splashes of Worcestershire sauce
a dash of lemon juice

Mix together. Toast an English muffin about half way. Put salmon filling on muffin. Top with cheese. Broil until cheese is all melting & bubbling.
This was fantastic! If you think cheese on salmon is weird, ask yourself: is cheese on tuna any less weird, when you think about it? This worked and was delicious. I would definitely make this again!

Easy Dinners

I started a new medication regime that has had an interesting side effect: appetite suppression. I just don't feel like eating a lot of the time; I get hungry, but food isn't appealing. Some days, I only eat two meals, with a snack in between. Sometimes I really have to force myself to make something for dinner because I just don't feel like cooking. So, I haven't been busy in the kitchen lately, cooking or baking-wise. It's hell on the food blog, that's for sure.

I've been eating salad quite a bit because my iffy tummy seems to be able to handle more vegetable fiber now for some weird reason, and I've been eating a lot of ham & cheese sandwiches. Sometimes there are days when all I fancy is a bowl of cereal, so I eat a lot of cereal meals. I'm not complaining; I want to lose a whole bunch of weight, and if there were any side effects I'd love my meds to give me, this suppression of my appetite would be at the top of my list! So, I go with it.

I've been keeping dinners simple. The Rosemary & Lemon Roast Chicken is a good example: serve it with some potatoes and a veg, and it's easy and healthy.

I've been eating quite a bit of salmon. It's easy, quick, and healthy. I don't feel like doctoring it up a lot, so a sprinkle of some lemon pepper is enough, as with this meal...
I did find some Tequila Lime marinade at the local overpriced grocery store today - Barefoot Contessa brand, and it was on sale for $2.99 in the reduced bin! Woo-hoo! Normally it's like $8.99. I used some tonight and BBQed a piece of salmon...I used foil because I'm not sure the rack on the BBQ is spaced close together enough to facilitate easy fish BBQing - and the clean-up is easier. I always have a bag of frozen beans around. The marinade was pretty good, though it had jalapenos in it which I hate, but I picked them off and it wasn't too spicy. I cooked the rice with some beef boullion.

And then there is pizza casserole. Oh, how I love this stuff! And I got the KD for 50 cents/box in the reduced bin, too! This pan makes me about 5 meals and it's so good! Topped with my fave pizza toppings: ham, feta, and olives.I feel my posts over here have been really blah lately, and I apologize for that. Now you kinda know why. I'm going to try to keep coming up with stuff to post, but it's been hard lately...

Salmon Burgers

OK, I've had some serious cat drama for the last several days, so I'm very behind in my posting and commenting. I do have several things coming down the wire, I just need to get my act together and my anxiety under control so that I can sit down & write the posts.

Here, however, are the burgers I made to go with my homemade burger buns the other night, burgers I had to abandon in mid-meal because I had to rush Juno to the vet.

Basically, ground salmon, formed into a patty & seasoned with salt & pepper. I grilled them on the old George Foreman, and served the burger with a lemon garlic aoli, sliced avocado, and on the side I had a nice spinach salad.
Hopefully, regular food-blogging will resume shortly.

Dissecting Fish Farming Propaganda

Cross-posted here. I thought this might be of interest to my foodie friends, too.

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This week, in my Canadian Living Magazine, I received a lengthy piece of propaganda from these people. I don't know how it wound up in the Canadian Living package, along with a whack of coupons and other inserts, but it was an interesting piece of propaganda nonetheless. And who doesn't love a good piece of propaganda, right? Right.

Though honest and informative, this 8 page flyer did nothing to ease any concerns I might have had about farmed salmon. In fact, after reading it through and highlighting some passages, I am even more firmly committed to not purchasing farmed salmon. The propaganda had the opposite effect to what was apparently desired by the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association.

A few highlights. I love this first one, actually.

During the last months of hatchery life, we vaccinate our salmon to help build their immune systems. At the farm site, this vaccine will protect the salmon from diseases commonly found in the saltwater environment.

Not cool with me at all, actually, but thanks for letting me know.

Next, this very assuring admission:

Since salmon naturally eat fish, such as herring and anchovies, including fish meal and oil in their diet seems natural. However, these proteins and oils are now being increasingly substituted with vegetable-based proteins and oils. (Emphasis mine.)

Again, not cool. Farmed salmon are being fed fish meal - not real fish - that now contains vegetable-based proteins and oils. This is moving even farther away from the fish's natural diet, and if these vegetable-based proteins and oils are processed at all, that's a big problem, since processed vegetable oil products are very problematic for humans, too. It's not good for humans, I can't see how this would be good for salmon.

The majority of BC farmed salmon are Atlantic salmon.

This is common knowledge if you haven't been living under a rock, but the statement, though honest, doesn't help me feel any better about farmed salmon. This sentence appears under a heading called "Escapes" which gives the reader information about what happens when a farmed Atlantic salmon happens to escape the farm. Very interesting, especially the part that says "all farmed fish escapes must be reported and that information made public." Fine. But still, the inherent problem here isn't addressed: this industry has introduced a species that is not native to the environment. Additionally, the Atlantic salmon, according to the information provided, cannot breed with any Pacific species, which is a relief, but "escaped farm salmon are poorly adapted to survival having been fed, pampered, and protected from predators. While small numbers of escaped Atlantic salmon have managed to make it to rivers, even fewer survive and none have ever produced sustained populations." Though every effort is made to prevent escapes, nothing is foolproof, despite improvements to cages. Accidents happen. If an accident happens in this case, fish die one way or another, depositing their vaccinated, vegetable-protein-fed remains out in the sea where any unsuspecting halibut can come and feast on it. Again, not cool.

By 2030, the world is expected to eat nearly 70% more fish than it does now. Wild fisheries can't keep up. One answer is aquaculture. ... In 2005, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FOA) reported that 75% of the world's capture fisheries were at or near their harvest rates.

So, wild fisheries cannot keep up with demand, and fish stocks world-wide are in big trouble. I fail to see how farming fish is going to help things out. In fact, fish farming could be quite bad for the planet if you read the above points and then imagine fish farming growing increasing all over the world. Surely the most obvious solution to this problem is to stop overfishing and overconsuming fish.

Fish feed contains two beta-carotenes, astaxanthin and canthaxanthin, which are found in nature as well. These carotenes provide salmon with the necessary nutrients for healthy grown and their beautiful colour. Wild salmon achieve their coloration from these same micronutrients by eating small crustaceans, like shrimp, which naturally contain high beta-carotene levels.

Again, thanks for the info, but if given the choice, I'm going to choose wild salmon that have eaten those small crustaceans instead of fish meal, thank you very much. Just like I choose buffalo meat that is free-range and grass-fed.

Finally:

Farmed salmon are not fed steroids or hormones and rarely receive antibiotics. Similar to other farmed animals, if a fish is sick a veterinarian may recommend a treatment; this treated fish cannot be harvested until after a mandatory waiting period. In fact, fish farms use the least amount of antibiotics in the agriculture industry.

This may be true, but see the above point about vaccination. Obviously, there is a risk of sickness, otherwise there would be no need to vaccinate, and while the vaccinations might minimize the need for antibiotics later in the fish's life, we are still getting into a vicious circle that could have been eliminated easily by not introducing a foreign species into the environment in the first place.

This is just my two cents, of course. What do you think?

Kamloops Trip, Food Edition, Part 2

My friend S found this bakery in the Kamloops area called Craig's Bakery. They do not have a web site, unfortunately, but they do have some of the most amazing scones I've ever had. S swears by them, and the ingredient lists are always full of naturally good stuff and no crap. Scones and fruit salad were on the menu at S&M's on Saturday morning before M and his parents headed out to the gun show (where they met my dad - the gun show was the whole reason behind this trip) and S and I went to the mall.

No trip to a major centre in BC would be complete for me without a visit to the local Purdy's location!

What can I say about Purdy's other than they are the most amazing chocolatiers ever in the history of chocolatiers? They are to die for! They are also really expensive, but they usually have a basket on the counter of "almost perfect" chocolates sold at at discount because they're a little less than perfect. This particular day was my lucky day: I found a 1lb dark chocolate assortment - my favourite!!!!! - in the almost perfect basket! Of course, I snagged it. Woo-hoo!
For dinner that night, after a hard day of shopping, S's husband BBQed a huge side of salmon, using BC's Famous Salmon Marinade & BBQ Sauce. I love this stuff! Accompanying our salmon was a mixture of BBQed veggies and baked potatoes with all the fixings. For dessert, we had ice cream with sliced strawberries & whipped cream.
M is an excellent BBQer and the salmon was perfectly done and so, so succulent! And I love veggies grilled on the BBQ. This was one outstanding meal.

Incidentally, the plate my dinner is on and the platter the salmon is on were both made by S, who is a wicked potter!

Thank you so much for your hospitality, S&M! You guys rock!

Up next: my time at Anita's!

Curling Wind-up Dinner

Last night was our ladies' curling club's year-end dinner. This was catered by John Cochrane (not sure of the spelling) who is a local chef. This is my third time attending the dinner and he's cooked for us each time. Each time it's been spectacular. John made the dessert this year, too. Our bonspiel back at the beginning of last month was a financial success (I didn't attend) and because of that, all members got their meals for $5! Amazing value and an amazing meal, and it's always nice to go and hang out with the girls and do something social with them. So, here is the rundown of the food we ate.


We had two appies, a baked brie in phyllo with a grainy mustard sauce. I didn't get a picture of it, unfortunately, but I did get a picture of this spicey shrimp dish, made with tomato sauce and cayenne pepper. The shrimp are dipped in cornstarch and deep fried. This was delish!








We had three salads, and this spinach one is my favourite. Normally, I don't like fruit in an otherwise savoury salad, but this is great: strawberries, candied almonds, and a balsamic dressing.










Greek salad.














This is a ramen & cabbage salad with a rice vinegar dressing.











This salmon was the star of the evening. It's roasted with sundried tomatoes, and herbs...maybe even a pesto-like mixture. It was to die for.











These green beans were really good, too. They were cooked with sesame seeds and fresh ginger.











This was my plate of food. I enjoyed every morsel. We also had bread and basmati rice with our dinner.










Dessert, which John made, too: banana, peanut butter, and chocolate frozen cheesecake. This was good, but not my favourite flavour combination. I tend not to like things flavoured with bananas, though I do like actual bananas.






That's it for this year! Curling starts up again in November - can't wait!

Garden Bounty: Beans and Dill

This year I planted a garden. I haven't done this since childhood, but in the spirit of the 100 Mile Diet and general greening, I decided to plant a small veggie patch this year. It's been quite the adventure, and I'm not sure I'm enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

My garden has seen its share of adversity. First, we had a really late spring and summer, so our already short growing season was made even shorter. We had snow on June 10, necessitating my scrambling to cover up my little seedlings - only planted two short weeks previously. The plants I started indoors didn't all survive the transplanting process, which was frustrating and unfortunate. I also had a seriously nasty, bitch of a weed that has caused me nothing but strife! And, let's not forget the neighbourhood cats that were digging around in the garden shortly after I planted it. We also had huge hail twice and a very damaging wind storm.

But, I am glad to say that some things have survived all the adversity! I have an actual bean crop. At first, it didn't look like I'd get many beans, and I jokingly said to my family that I had a whole four beans, but I guess I should have been more patient, because then I had nine beans, and then enough to actually count as a decent serving. And there are still more popping up on the plants! The other night, I harvested the wax beans to have with a meal. I also have healthy dill, which I'm very pleased about. Sockeye salmon is fresh in the stores now, so I made a dinner of wax beans, rice, and salmon with my dill and some lemon.

The beans were good. I mean, they're beans, right? They tasted beany. The dill was dilly - no surprise. The salmon was baked to perfection if I do say so myself. It was quite a lovely meal, actually, and for a few moments I was able to forget all the annoyances I'd experienced in bringing this dinner to my own table. For a few moments, it was all worth it.


Next up: I have a bumper crop of basil and a whack of lettuce I need to do something with.

Giada's Salmon

Yesterday morning I watched Everyday Italian with Giada de Laurentiis, whom I like very much. She made something like this on the show so I thought I'd try it out for dinner last night. It was a big hit.

Here it is.

1. Take salmon. I used a side because I was feeding four people, but you can adjust this very easily to accommodate the number of people you're feeding. Put in a baking dish or on a piece of heavy duty foil.
2. Take some vine-ripened tomatoes and chop roughly - no need to peel or seed. You'll need enough to cover the top of the salmon you're making.
3. Put the chopped tomatoes into a bowl and add salt & pepper to taste, some dried herbs like oregano, thyme, basil, some finely chopped scallions or shallots or onion of some description, some fresh garlic to taste.
4. Pour over this some good quality olive oil, just to coat - you're not making a salad dressing with it. Over this, squeeze some fresh lemon juice to taste.
5. Spread this over the salmon evenly. If using the baking dish, cover well with foil and bake until salmon is cooked through. If you're just using foil, fold it around the fish firmly into a nice package and cook until done.

I served this with rice and a green salad.

Notes to the readership.

• You could use halibut, cod, or many other types of fish for this, including large shrimp.
• If fresh tomatoes are not available, canned ones are fine; just drain off the juice. But don't chuck the juice! Save it and put it in soup or something.
• Feel free to play around with the herbs. This has a distinctly Italian flavour to it with the oregano etc., but dill would be nice, too.

Questions, comments? You know the deal.

Fast Salmon for One

For this recipe, which I just made, you should either have a fresh filet of salmon, or a frozen one that has been completely thawed beforehand. Don't thaw in the microwave; do it in the fridge or out on the counter (which is against Food Safe, I know, but one salmon filet will pretty much thaw on the counter in about an hour and a half). Thawing in the microwave often is uneven and you wind up getting a frozen centre and cooked edges, which is bad.

So...

• Take a salmon filet. Take a frying pan. Put some olive oil in the frying pan and crank up the heat. The pan must be very hot - the oil should just start to lightly smoke.
• Gently lay the salmon in the pan; season with salt & pepper. Do not touch the salmon for at least 1 1/2 - 2 minutes - it will still stick to the pan at this point and you'll get a mess. After the minute and a half, look at the cross section of the salmon and if it's cooked aobut 1/4 of the way or so, then flip the salmon and season that side. It shouldn't stick. Again leave it for about a minute and a half to two minutes.
• Deglaze the pan with a generous splash of white wine. Add some dried dill and a clove of garlic. You can also add a shallot or a leek, if desired. Sprinkle with freshly squeezed lemon juice. Let the wine reduce, uncovered, until there's only a bit left. Check salmon for doneness. Reduce the heat to low. Put the lid on the pan and let the salmon gently cook until done.
• You can serve it now or, if you're feeling decadent, you can finish this off with a couple of tablespoons of cream (which is obviously less diet-friendly).

Serve with a salad, and you have a quick, yummy, healthy meal.