Eating Our Way Through Fall

Ahhh, fall eating. As with many households, what we eat varies depending on how busy we are, what’s in season, what we have a lot of, and who’s coming to dinner. This time of year, we enjoy a change of pace from the summer in all ways, and that includes in our diets. To that end, we have a couple new-to-us recipes to share and one old favorite that have kept us company this fall.

Chard, potatoes & walking onions from our garden

When regrouping back at home in September after the long summer, there’s plenty to keep us racing around even though we are done with fishing. Pulling anchors, lines and bouys, hauling our nets, gear and skiffs to store safely on shore, closing up our summer camps and gardens, putting boards on windows, electric fences up, covering the garden beds with kelp and cardboard, and all the last nit-picky cleaning of cabins, skiffs and beaches, can leave us with massive appetites and little energy to cook. Without crew to help spread the burden, quick and easy is the name of the game for many of our dinners. This means a lot of our own home-canned food - venison, salmon, and turkey - in various combinations. Though we don’t sell canned salmon, we thought we’d share one of our most recent recipe finds for a warm, simple and hearty salmon casserole since you can easily purchase Alaska salmon in cans at the store, or you could also make the recipe with an equivalent amount of flaked already-cooked salmon (a good use for leftovers). It is fastest if you also have some leftover rice already cooked and ready to go.

Here’s the recipe, which we have adapted from inspiration found in the pages of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council’s “Marine Cuisine” cookbook:

1 pint jar of salmon (or about 1.5 cups flaked pre-cooked salmon)

1 cup corn

1/2 onion, sauteed in butter

1/2 bell pepper, any color, diced

3 jalapenos, diced (or to taste)

1 Tbsp. or more of salsa

2 beaten eggs

1 cup cooked rice

1 cup grated cheddar cheese plus more for topping

Preheat oven to 375. Grease an 8X8 inch baking dish or similar sized casserole pan, or even a pie plate, mix all ingredients together well, then sprinkle the extra cheese on top and bake until it’s all bubbling hot, about 15-20 minutes in our oven.

Raspberry dessert - so easy and delicious

Our next recipe was inspired by several elements of our Uganik life. First, of course, is the people. After fishing, it is a highlight to be able to gather in the evening without cutting it short because everyone has to scatter to their skiffs to pick their nets. We had neighbors coming for an after-salmon-season relaxed and celebratory dinner, a plethora of raspberries behind our greenhouse, and a ridiculous amount of cream cheese that was sent to us in error in a grocery order. Sometimes you get strange things when you can’t shop in person - in this case an industrial amount of cream cheese in individual serving size packets. Time to get the creative juices flowing. Actually, I just did an online search for a raspberry cream cheese dessert and found the recipe at Big Rigs ‘n Lil Cookies, which I made exactly as written. The result: delicious dessert which earned rave reviews!

Coming back to salmon, we were gifted a beautiful king fillet caught by a friend of ours, sport fishing in the neighborhood one October day. Though our fishing season had ended, these kings can be found by those in the know during winter months and are universally prized. What a treat! For this, we used citrus to make it bright and cheery which goes perfectly with the richness of king salmon flesh. We used this citrus roasted salmon recipe from My Recipes, but of course we didn’t have all the ingredients so had to use some lemons and grapefruit along with the orange to make up the difference. Still, it was a keeper!

The most perfect dish of our fall had to have been our anniversary dinner on October 25th. Tollef’s go-to for special meals is his superb homemade pasta. To top it, Adelia made a lovely salmon cream dill sauce, a recipe that came to us years ago from the mom of one of our awesome crew members. Though we sent it in one of our paper newsletters, astonishingly it hasn’t yet made it to the blog. No time like the present! We ate it seated at our new cedar-plank table that Tollef has worked painstakingly on, sanding and varnishing in many patient layers, illuminated by beeswax candlelight but still able to look out our picture window at the fading scenery of our surrounding waters, islands, mountains, and clouds. How lucky are we to share this life!

Lizza’s Mom’s Salmon Cream Sauce

2 c. heavy cream

4 T. butter

1 t. salt

pinch nutmeg

3 T. parmesan or other hard cheese, grated

1.5 - 2 cups flaked poached salmon, skin removed

1/3 c. chopped fresh dill

1 pound pasta

Bring cream and butter to a simmer in small saucepan, add the salt and nutmeg and simmer until reduced by one third. Cook pasta. When sauce is reduced, add salmon, parmesan, and dill. Remove from heat. Serve on pasta and enjoy, preferably with someone you love!

Here’s to lifetimes of happy anniversaries still to come!

Next up on our fall eating menu is Thanksgiving dinner. On that note, we want to take a moment here to share our gratitude to all our salmon friends, family, crew, customers, and supporters for all the ways you enrich our life. Thank You!