salmon – Harmonious Belly

January 7, 2012January 7, 2012

Food Lover’s Cleanse 2012, Day 3

Day 3 of the Food Lover’s Cleanse went well! I started out using the set schedule, with a two egg omelet with caramelized onions. I finished it with some of the wonderful paprika salt from my friends at Gardenfreude. I love this salt – it is my favorite of the herb salts they prepare. It has an earthy sweetness that I find irresistible.

I found this omelet to be pretty filling, so I wanted something light for lunch. So I chose to eat Day 2’s snack for lunch, along with half an avocado with meyer lemon juice. Pictured are CSA apples, AkMak crackers with VT chevre, kalamata olives, and slices of spicy pork sausage. It was perfect! I think my favorite flavor combination was the sausage and apple.

Dinner was the beet soup and the salmon from Day 2’s dinner. Now, I was hesitant when I saw the 5 Spice Beet Soup as part of the menu – last year it was there and I found it lacking in flavor. I had to doctor it up with extra spices and everything. Well, this year something changed – likely, it’s my taste buds. I loved the soup this year!

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January 3, 2011January 8, 2011

Food Lover’s Cleanse Day 2

Day 2 of the Food Lover’s Cleanse started out great and ended especially deliciously. I learned some new cooking techniques and flavor combinations, which was one of my main goals in following this program.

Breakfast: Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa; kefir. This was really good and I look forward to eating the other half in the morning. I halved the recipe and that amount was perfect. I also used black quinoa – new to me, as I usually eat red quinoa – which had a nuttier texture. I replaced the frozen blackberries with frozen blueberries, as the blueberries were more sustainably grown than the blackberries.

Fortunately, I had some raw kefir on hand – it’s quite sour, so I added a little maple syrup to it. I enjoyed it today moreso than in other times, so I think I’ll be drinking kefir regularly.

Lunch: Leftover couscous and vegetables, celery root and apple salad. I have so much leftover couscous that it made sense to eat it for lunch. The celery root salad was really good, but I’m a huge fan of celery root, nom. The mixture of the mild celery flavor, sweet-tart apples, and nutty walnuts was a total winning combination.

Snack: yogurt with tangerines and shaved chocolate. Was very busy and didn’t find time to snack this afternoon! My loss because this combo sounds very tasty.

Dinner: Salmon in a bengali mustard sauce, black-eyed pea curry, roasted butternut squash with curry leaves and mustard seed. The salmon and curry were both amazing, the squash was good but didn’t blow me away. The salmon came from my salmon CSA, so it’s incredibly nourishing. The curry got super rave reviews in my household, so I will definitely make it again. I loved how easy the execution of these dishes was, and I think that’s because my mise-en-place was in order. Lots of spices and ingredients in these recipes!

After Dinner Snack: 1 ounce of dark chocolate and rooibos tea with honey. I had some raw chocolate that I got in Washington (I’d put it in the freezer when I got home), so that’s what I ate. It is so tasty, and contains coconut (dark chocolate and coconut is a great combo). No tea for me, just not in the mood.

It will be interesting to see how I’ll manage this cleanse program with my work schedule (read: less hours in the day to cook) starting tomorrow. Thank goodness for the dishwasher, too – it has made the cleanup part of this so easy!

And last, it’s been fun to see what other people are doing with this cleanse. I’m keeping an eye on both the progress of Shauna from Gluten Free Girl and the Chef, and Lexi from after apple-picking. You should check them out, too!

August 30, 2010September 2, 2011

Iliamna Salmon Share Has Arrived

Back in June I wrote that I had joined a wild-caught salmon CSA, run by the Iliamna Fish Company. This weekend, I picked up my fish!

Pickup was at The Brooklyn Kitchen, right by the front door. I hadn’t been to TBK since they’d moved to their new space on Frost Street, so I was also very curious to see the place. Wow, it is awesome! Lots of space, connection to The Meat Hook (a wonderful butcher that stocks local meat), and plenty of drool-worthy products. I plan to buy my Harsch crock there this fall.

I must say, it smells amazing there. They make a variety of sausages, and they smell delicious.

the package

The Iliamna representative – one of the family members – met me at the front of the store, keeping watch over a giant chest freezer. It was probably 6 feet long, and full of vacuum packed, frozen fish. My share was all wrapped up in two layers of butcher paper, and fit perfectly in my Hellgate CSA tote bag. There was no risk of the fish defrosting, the way it was insulated.

Inside the package were 8 fillets.

frozen fish

I was able to fit them all in my freezer, thank goodness! I was a little concerned that they’d be too big, but they fit just fine.

I put a couple of the fillets in the fridge to defrost, as friends were coming over to check out the salmon. I thought that each fillet might feed three people – boy was I wrong. One fillet fed 5 of us, with fish to spare! So, I have a whole fillet ready to cook, which I’ll do tonight. I plan to make salmon burgers with the cooked fish and freeze them for a later date.

This salmon is really gorgeous.

filet

I cooked it very simply – olive oil, fleur de sel, and lemon juice to season it. Baked in parchment at 350 degrees. Parchment is my favorite way to cook fish, apart from grilling. It took about 20 minutes to cook the entire fillet, though I would be happy with cooking it for 15 minutes.

in parchment

The fish had amazing flavor – very clean and salmony. I loved it, as did my guests. I’m really happy I have this fish. I look forward to eating it throughout the fall and winter, too!

June 14, 2010September 2, 2011

Iliamna Fish Company CSA

iliamna This weekend, while perusing Chowhound, I came across a post entitled Where should I buy wild salmon? It mentioned a wild salmon CSA, and as a lover of wild caught salmon, it certainly caught my eye.

The salmon is caught by the Iliamna Fish Company, a third-generation family-owned cooperative based in Alaska. They follow the natural spawning season of the salmon, and catch the fish in late June and early July in Bristol Bay. Members of the CSA will receive 12 pounds of flash-frozen sockeye salmon in late August, at a pickup location in Brooklyn.

Wild Sockeye is deep red in color and has the highest levels of omega-3 in the salmon family. It’s high in protein, has plenty of good fat, and minerals. It’s also delicious!

So how sustainable is are the methods for catching this fish? According to their website, “Iliamna Fish Company sockeye salmon are Marine Stewardship Council certified-signifying the ocean, rivers and lake where our wild sockeye grow are part of a healthy and pure marine ecosystem.” As far as the way they are caught, the fish are caught by small boats (4 feet deep and 20 feet long) in set nets:

The process of set netting might be compared to tying a sheet to a clothesline in the wind. Nets are “set,” or anchored, perpendicular to the shore, usually in 25-fathom increments. The top of the net, floated by white synthetic corks, is tied to a line running between fixed anchors at both ends. The bottom of the net is a heavy, weighted line that sinks below the surface of the water.

Between the floating line and the weighted line, the webbing of the net billows with the strong current of the tide. As fish move up and downstream with the tide, they are caught in the billowing, curved “basket” formed by the tide and net. Fish are either ensnared at their heads, by catching their gills in the webbing, or they are caught lying broadside, ungilled-held in the “basket” of the net by the tidal current.

More about Iliamna’s set nets can be found here.

They also work with the biologists that monitor the streams in the area, and only after they determine there is enough fish does the Iliamna crew head in for the catch. This ensures there is no overfishing and that salmon will be here for years to come. They also support the work of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Marine Stewardship Council, Ecotrust, and Salmon Nation.

So, come August I should have 12 pounds of sustainably-fished, wild-caught sockeye in my freezer! I’ll be enjoying salmon throughout the fall and winter, I expect. I’m really excited about this! I will certainly report back on the quality of the fish this fall.