Having been raised harvesting Alaska wildberries you’d think I would be a pro at making jams and jellies. Truth is, I really stink at it. It always comes out syrupy. It’s like you have to have some sort of instinctual jam-making knowledge passed down through the generations.
But in reality all it takes is a lot of stirring. My mom has been making jam since she moved here in 1982. I turned to her for this segment of “Harvesting Anchorage.”
It was a bluebird day in Anchorage as we made our way to our super-secret blueberry spot. The only downside of picking berries on a sunny day is they are harder to see — but I’m not complaining!
Every summer I look forward to the week of our wedding anniversary; and not because I’m a hopeless romantic — because it’s sockeye salmon season on the Kenai River.
My husband is never here to celebrate our anniversary during the second week of July because he’s dipnetting three hours away.
And although I love a good fresh grilled salmon steak (last night we grilled them over alder branches), it’s the roe that I crave. We usually brine the roe in a simple salt and water solution and serve them with crackers and white wine. You can read my post from last year about wild salmon caviar.
Today, though, a friend dutifully gave me his roe from the silver salmon he caught in Seward over the weekend. When I went to process them I realized they were too small and delicate. Pushing them through a metal grate was ruining them. I didn’t want to waste them so I thought outside the box. Or inside the box, rather, as my dad had just removed some red salmon lox from his smoker.
I found this incredibly simple recipe for smoked salmon roe and decided to give it a try. It turned out splendidly! A friend told me it tasted a bit like smoked oysters. I will definitely try it again, but I might rinse the eggs of their salt brine before smoking them as they are a bit on the salty side.
This recipe assumes that you know how to use a smoker. I only say this because my dad is the smoke master in my family and I haven’t learned to operate one. All I can say is we cold smoked the eggs since heat would ruin the texture altogether.
Make sure the roe is fresh, fresh, fresh. That means it’s either been in a freshly caught fish or if the fish was processed on the beach that the eggs were kept on ice the entire time for no more than two days.
Smoked Salmon Roe
Directions:
Rinse the salmon roe skeins in fresh cold water to remove any grit. Pat them dry with paper towels and dredge them in kosher salt.
Place them on a rimmed baking sheet in the fridge for 20 minutes. In the meantime, turn on your smoker.
Remove the skeins from the fridge and rinse them again under cold water. Pat dry. Rinse off the baking sheet and wipe dry. Place the skeins back on the tray.
Place your baking sheet on the top shelf and leave the smoker door slightly ajar. Smoke for 30-45 minutes.
Place roe in fridge until cold. Use a butter knife to scrape the eggs away from the skein membrane. Store in a jar for up to 5 days (but they shouldn’t last that long, really). Enjoy on crackers or in any way you deem fit. Today I made sushi with the smoked roe. It was fabulous.
My old friend Ivan Night is a man of many talents; he’s a musician, an educator, a sound technician, a beer brewer, but for the sake of this blog post we’ll stick to just one of his titles: an apiarist.
Ivan has been keeping bees for about eight years. His family has owned and operated Alaska Wild Teas for more than three decades, so honey is a natural side project. Check the bottom of this post for a homemade tea recipe.
Recently I visited Ivan’s home to see how he harvests honey from his busy little bees.
I’ll never stop promoting Costco rotisserie chicken. It’s only $5 and not only is it delicious hot off the shelf (I sometimes don’t even bother with a plate or silverware), but the leftovers can be used for myriad dishes such as pesto lasagna roll ups, quick matzo ball soup and homemade chicken stock.
Tonight on the menu is white chili. My friend Danielle introduced me to the notion of non-tomato chili about eight years ago and when I thought of the dish for tonight I was surprised I hadn’t blogged about it yet.
This one-pot wonder has similar flavors to traditional chili. With the addition of salsa verde and sour cream you give chili night a new twist.
White chili with chicken
Serves 6
Ingredients:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped yellow bell pepper
1 can diced green chiles
leftover rotisserie chicken meat, shredded
1, 16-oz. jar salsa verde
1.5 cups chicken stock
2 tsp. ground cumin
1/4 tsp. chili powder
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1 bay leaf
2 cans great white northern beans, drained
1 cup sour cream
Directions:
Heat oil in a dutch oven. Sauté the onions and peppers till onions are soft, about 7 minutes. Add the chiles, chicken, salsa, stock and spices. Bring to a simmer, turn to low and simmer one hour.
Add the beans and cook another 10 minutes. Add the sour cream just before serving. Top with cilantro sprigs and shredded cheddar cheese.
My old college friends are here for a visit this week and of course they arrive on the first cloudy day in two weeks. This morning we had planned on making my creamy tomato tortellini soup, but by mid-afternoon the sun finally came out and it was evident that soup was inappropriate. We decided on pizza on the grill.
This is a dish my mom is an expert at preparing. She makes the dough from scratch, but we didn’t have the time. I discovered that my grocery store sells balls of pizza dough in the bakery section for just $3. This makes pizza a quick, easy dish.
Good pizza tends to be cooked in a really hot oven and my oven just doesn’t get hot enough. My gas grill, though, can heat up pretty well. Pizza on the grill is easy and the crust comes out wonderfully crispy. The secret is to use a pizza grate, which looks a bit like a fan filter and only costs a few bucks at a restaurant supply store. The other secret is to grill the rolled out dough on one side before adding the toppings.
Pizza on the grill
Ingredients:
2 balls of pre-made pizza dough
shredded mozzarella cheese
simple tomato sauce
toppings of choice such as Italian sausage, mushrooms and Kalamata olives.
Pizza grate (can be purchased at restaurant kitchen supply stores)
Directions:
Let the dough sit at room temperature for 30 minutes. Heat gas grill to hot for 15 minutes. Turn down burners to medium-hot.
Flour and roll out the dough till it’s pizza size and place on pizza grate. Place on the grill and close the grill for about 3-5 minutes, until the side down is browned. Flip and remove from grill. Add tomato sauce, cheese and toppings and place back on the grill until cheese is melted and bubbly, about 5 minutes and bottom of the pizza is browned.
As part of my personal challenge to forage at least one edible plant a month this summer in Anchorage, I decided to revisit wild rose petals. Several years back I collected these perfectly pink petals and made a just-OK jelly out of them. Thing is, I don’t eat jelly. I’m not a toast and jam kind of gal, I guess.
This time I opted to make rose petal syrup. It was easy to prepare and resulted in a gorgeous pink concoction that tasted as good as roses smell.
You can find wild roses just about everywhere in Anchorage in June. This bush is on the on-ramp to the Seward Highway.
The wild roses are in full bloom here in Anchorage and it’s hard not to find them. I picked petals on the side of the highway, on my street and in my back yard. They have been in bloom since the first week of June and will probably be around for another week before they fade, fall and begin to turn into rose hips (and that’s another foraging adventure!)
Rose Petal Syrup
To make one bottle of syrup I collected about 2 gently packed cups of petals. Be ready to encounter some caterpillars, bugs and spiders (I lost about a cup of petals when I spotted an arachnid creeping around my collecting jar).
*2023 update* – I realized I didn’t have a written recipe for the syrup. Here it is!
Ingredients:
6 cups fresh wild rose petals
5 cups sugar
1 quart plus 1 cup of water
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Fill the sink with cold water and pour in the petals. Stir them around and let the bugs and debris settle. Spin the petals dry in a salad spinner and place in a medium mixing bowl. Add 3/4 cup of sugar and muddle the petals with a potato masher.
Place the pulpy petals in a sealable container in the fridge overnight. Before cleaning the mixing bowl, scoop out remaining sugar gloop and exfoliate your hands. It’s lovely.
The next day, bring the water to a boil. Add the remaining sugar till dissolved. Toss in the petals and any pulp, lemon juice and salt and simmer on low until the color has been extracted from the petals. There’s no science to this. I think I simmered mine for 30 minutes. The liquid should be bright pink.
Turn off the heat and let the syrup cool. Using a mesh strainer lined with a clean linen dishcloth, ladle the syrup into a pitcher, pressing on the petals and tossing them as you go.
Pour into sanitized jars or bottles. Keep refrigerated. Keeps for several months.
I came home from work today and didn’t want to think much about making dinner. What with eight wedding floral gigs this summer, parenting, plus my near full-time job, I have a lot of other things on my mind.
Enter condensed cream of chicken soup. I tend to avoid recipes that call for this salty, globby ingredient but sometimes I’ll make an exception.
Chicken, veggies, herbs and soup over rice or noodles is always a crowd pleaser. Comfort food at its finest.
This was simple to assemble and although it’s not quick, it requires very little effort or thought, which is perfect for today.
Chicken & Vegetable Stew-like Casserole Dinner
Serves 4
Ingredients:
2 tbs. butter
olive oil
3-4 skinless chicken thighs (breast works too)
1/2 cup flour
3 celery stalks, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped (about 1 cup)
3 carrots, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley
1 can cream of chicken soup
6 oz. cream cheese
chicken stock
1/2 cup frozen peas
1/2 cup frozen green beans
1/2 cup frozen peas
salt and pepper
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Heat butter and 2 Tbs. olive oil in a dutch oven oven. Place flour in a pie pan. Dredge chicken thighs in flour and shake off any excess. Place thighs in dutch oven and brown on both sides, about 5 minutes total. Set thighs aside and pour out excess oil.
Add another tablespoon of oil and toss in the celery, onion and carrot. Cook until onions are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the parsley, bay leaf and cream of chicken soup. Fill the empty can with chicken stock and pour that too. Break up the cream cheese with your fingers and add to the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Nestle the thighs into the sauce and place into the oven. Take out and stir the pot every 20 minutes or so to prevent any burning.
After 45 minutes in the oven, stir in the frozen veggies and break up the thighs with a fork. Place back in the oven and bake another 30 minutes.
Remove from oven and break up any other chicken pieces. Remove bay leaf and serve over egg noodles or brown rice.
As Part Two of my summertime Alaska blog series, I tried to harvest a few things such as fiddlehead ferns and fireweed shoots, but I only successfully cooked something using devil’s club.
You’ve probably encountered devil’s club in any Alaska forest. It’s pretty much the last plant you want to encounter because it’s covered top to bottom in sharp thorns that can easily embed themselves in your skin; but in the spring the plants produce short buds covered in premature, soft thorns. This part of the plant is edible. Is it good? That’s what I aimed to find out.
I embarked on my devil’s club hunt on a sunny spring day after the birch trees had started budding. I had no trouble finding a thicket of devil’s club up on the hillside. They all had 1-to-3-inch buds emerging from the dry, wheat-colored stalks. I used a gardening glove to pluck them and collected them in a bucket.
This one isn’t quite ready yet. There should be an inch or two of green coming out of the brown sheath.This one is ripe for the plucking!
After getting stuck with thorns a few times I felt as though I had enough to work with. On the drive home my car started smelling like an Alaska forest. The devil’s club buds had a spicy, celery-like scent.
In an effort to spiff up some of my past recipes, I made this winner dinner tonight and have decided it shouldn’t be called “Lazy Lasagna” but rather, “Skillet Lasagna.” It is much easier to break up the lasagna noodles and not deal with slippery, boiling hot noodles and layering and all that, but it still takes some time to make this recipe and it’s still totally worth it!
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My family requested lasagna for dinner yesterday, but I didn’t get home till 5 p.m. so it would have been a mad dash to get lasagna on the table by 6:30.
Here’s what I made instead. Although it’s about the same ingredients as lasagna I didn’t have to take the time to layer everything out. I just threw it all together, topped it with cheese and stuck it in the oven. Easy peasy.
Skillet Lasagna
From start to finish: 1 hour 30 minutes
Serves 6
Ingredients:
12 ounces lasagna noodles
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces button or crimini mushrooms, roughly chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pound loose Italian sausage
6 ounces baby spinach, roughly chopped
3 cups marinara sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, divided, plus more for serving
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375F. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. When the water boils break up the lasagna noodles into irregular pieces and add to the pot. Cook according to box instructions, about 12 minutes. Drain and set aside.
While the water boils and the noodles cook, heat the olive oil in a large cast iron skillet. Add the mushrooms and salt and sauté until some of the liquid has evaporated, about 7 minutes. Add the spinach and cook until spinach is wilted, another couple of minutes. Transfer mushrooms and spinach to a bowl and set aside.
Without cleaning the pan, add the sausage and break it up with a wooden spoon. Cook until sausage bits start to brown. Add the sauce, mushrooms and spinach. Combine well.
Add the noodles, 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/2 cup parmesan and stir till the noodles are well coated. Top with the remaining cheeses, cover and bake for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake another 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes. Slice up like a pie and serve with additional grated parmesan cheese.
Growing up I rarely had the chance to eat classic dinner foods such as tuna noodle casserole and meatloaf. I absolutely love these dishes. My mom started making meatloaf after I had moved out of the house and it quickly became a favorite. I don’t know what magic she puts into her recipe, but I’ll never know because, like me, my mom just throws stuff together and doesn’t keep track. Well, tonight’s meatloaf was worth remembering.
I doubled the recipe so there’s plenty of leftovers for meatloaf sandwiches, which are almost better than fresh-out-of-the-oven.
Mini meatloaf with mushroom marsala sauce
Serves 8
Ingredients:
1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms
1 pound ground pork
1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup chopped pistachios or cashews (optional)
2 egg yolks
2 slices of good white bread
2 Tbs. milk
2 Tbs. tomato paste
1 Tbs. Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2/3 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped pimiento olives (optional)
2 Tbs. dried parsley
1 Tbs. dried basil
2 tsp. dried oregano
salt and pepper
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
2 Tbs. butter
1 Tbs. olive oil
For the sauce:
2 Tbs. tomato paste
1/4 cup Marsala wine
splash of beef broth
up to 1 cup of reserved mushroom liquid (read recipe for details)
2 Tbs. chopped parsley
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Place dried mushrooms in a small bowl with hot water. Cover and let sit for 20 minutes. In another small bowl, tear up the bread and add the milk. Let sit for a minute and mash up with a fork.
In a Kitchen Aid bowl add the meat, nuts, yolks, soaked bread, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, onion, garlic, cheese, olives, dried herbs, salt and pepper. Finely chop the mushrooms and add them to the mixture, reserving the mushroom liquid for the sauce. Use the paddle attachment on a low setting until well combined.
Pour the bread crumbs on a tray or pie plate. Heat butter and oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Form four small loaves and dredge them in the bread crumbs. Brown the loaves in the pan two at a time.
Place the loaves in a casserole dish. Top each loaf with decorative olives if you’d like them to resemble a 1950s Betty Crocker cookbook.
Cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes or until the center of the loaf reads 140 degrees on a meat thermometer. Remove from oven, transfer loaves to a cutting board and let sit, covered, while you make the sauce.
The sauce: Reheat the pan that you used to brown the loaves. Pour any drippings from the casserole dish into the pan. When the pan is hot add the marsala and tomato paste and whisk until everything is well combined. Bring to a simmer and turn down the heat. Add about 1/2 cup of the mushroom liquid and a splash of beef broth. Add more mushroom liquid if it’s too thick. Add parsley just before serving.
Slice loaves into thick slabs. Serve with egg noodles and green beans. Slather with delicious meat sauce.
Alaska Knit Nat 