Tag Archives: Alaska

alaska, birch tree, birch tree syrup, sap, syrup, tree tapping

Harvesting Anchorage: Birch Tree Tapping

May 3, 2015 alaskaknitnat 11 Comments

This summer my goal is to gather or harvest at least one plant a month. Usually I gather fiddlehead ferns and fireweed shoots in May, pick wild strawberries in June (I can’t disclose my secret spot!), hunt for boletes in the mid/late summer and harvest berries in the fall.

When UAF Cooperative Extension Service tweeted about birch tree tapping in mid-April, I knew I had to start my harvesting season early. I texted my good friend Ivan, knower of all things apian, and he told me I could find spiles, or birch tree taps, at Alaska Mill & Feed. I have several big birches in my yard, so it was worth a try!

With just a little hardware and a whole lot of stove time, you can have your own homemade birch syrup (I still haven’t reached syrup state, but you’ll see what I came up with in the meantime if you read below). I didn’t take step-by-step photos only because they would be pretty boring. It’s a lot of boiling. Follow this handy guide for a complete explanation.

Please keep in mind that I’ve never done this before, so I have no idea whether I’m doing it incorrectly. The instructions below is what worked for us. Let me know if you use a different/better technique!

Birch Tree Tapping in Anchorage

Materials:

2 or more 7/16″ birch tree spiles ($5.99 each at Alaska Mill & Feed)
7/16″ drill bit
Power drill
Rubber mallet
2 or more 2-gallon buckets
3 or more 5-gallon buckets
Tall kitchen bags
Pushpins
Wire sieve
Two large soup pots
Small saucepan
Cheesecloth
Lots of freezer space
Candy thermometer

Continue reading Harvesting Anchorage: Birch Tree Tapping →

Cooking, Italian, Pasta, recipes

Ravioli Nudi and the End of Summer Camp

October 6, 2014 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend End of Summer Camp, which proved to be a unique bonding experience for Anchorage grown-ups. I met bloggers, event planners, printmakers, food critics, photographers, storytellers and other local professionals all while enjoying nostalgic campy activities. The campers were fed by Fork Catering, and I took every available moment to enjoy their meals and chat with chefs Rob and Dave.

Chef Rob Kinneen taught a cooking workshop, which I eagerly signed up for. Turns out he was going to demonstrate homemade pasta-making. I’m familiar with making my own pasta, such as comb pastas, basil fettuccine and Russian pelmeni, but I was interested in learning techniques from a professional chef.

He led a hands-on lesson on tortelloni and ravioli nudi. The tortelloni, which were essentially large tortellini, were familiar to me, but the ravioli nudi were entirely new. The nudi are like ravioli without the noodle, literally naked ravioli. Instead you incorporate cheeses, flour, herbs and egg into a sticky, soft dough and create small dumplings, which are then boiled. They are sort of like gnocchi, but with cheese instead of potato.

Chef Rob Kinneen (left) instructs campers on how to roll out ravioli nudi dough. — Chef Rob Kinneen instructs campers on how to roll out ravioli nudi dough.

My only attempt at making gnocchi in the past was a complete slimy failure and Rob’s technique for making nudi could be easily translated to gnocchi. I had to try the recipe myself when I got home.

And I did.

Ravioli Nudi with Spinach, Ricotta, and Parsley

Serves 3

Ingredients:

2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp. red chili flakes
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
8 oz. part-skim ricotta cheese
1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 Tbs. chopped Italian parsley
2 Tbs. chopped frozen spinach, thawed and well drained
1/4 cup all-purpose flour plus about 1/2 cup for coating dough

Useful utensil: spider strainer

Directions:

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Fill a large bowl with ice and cold water and set beside the pot. Meanwhile beat together the eggs, yolks, garlic, chili flakes, nutmeg, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Incorporate the ricotta till smooth. Add the parmesan, parsley and spinach. Slowly add the 1/4 cup flour till a super sticky dough forms. It should be the consistency of thick, lumpy pancake batter. Heavily flour a large cutting board. Gently turn the dough onto the board and work in enough extra flour for it to be very soft and sticky inside, but coated on all sides in flour. Form the dough into a 1.5-inch tall rectangle.

Cut the dough into 1.5-inch strips and gently roll each strip around, dusting with flour, till coated evenly on all sides. Cut each strip on a diagonal into 1-inch pieces so you have small, oblong dumplings. Gently roll each dumpling around in your floured hand till they are each coated and no sticky dough is exposed.

When the water is at a rolling boil, gently add the ravioli in batches so the water doesn’t cool down too much. Boil for just a few minutes, until the ravioli float to the surface. With a slotted spoon, strain out the ravioli and add to the ice water bath. Repeat with remaining ravioli.

Now that you have made your ravioli nudi, there are lots of ways to serve them. Use them in any ravioli recipe, or fry them up with butter till lightly browned and crusty.

Thanks again, Chef Rob, for your excellent instruction. I’m happy to add this technique to my repertoire.

alaska, appetizers, asian, seafood

Wild Alaska Salmon Poke

July 15, 2014 alaskaknitnat 2 Comments

If you live in Southcentral Alaska then you’re probably keenly aware it is sockeye salmon season. My husband is getting his hipwaders and dipnets all ready for the coming week where he will camp out on the shores of the Kenai River and make the most of the everlasting daylight by fishing into the wee hours of the night.

We still have some vacuum-packed filets in the freezer from last year so to make way for this year’s bounty we are trying to find creative ways to use it up. Sure, there’s nothing better than simple grilled salmon with a drizzle of lemon, but my dad started preparing poke out of the frozen filets that tops any store bought ahi poke.

Poke is a Hawaiian salad made of cubed sashimi such as ahi tuna, soy sauce, sesame oil, onions and hot chili sauce. It’s a bit like spicy tuna sushi without the rice and seaweed.

Here’s my dad’s recipe, which uses fresh-frozen sockeye, a.k.a. red, salmon. Keep in mind that the Food and Drug Administration recommends freezing fresh fish and thawing it before consuming it raw because this kills any parasites. This is how sushi-grade fish is prepared in America. The FDA also says cooking seafood is the safest way to consume it, so prepare poke at your own risk. If you are pregnant or are at risk for food-borne illness, then please be cautious about consuming fresh-frozen fish.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s my dad’s recipe!

Wild Alaska Salmon Poke

As featured on Anchorage Food Mosaic

makes about 4 cups

Ingredients:

2 pounds red salmon, previously frozen and thawed in the fridge overnight

1 bunch of green onions, finely chopped

1/2 cup finely chopped white onion

2 Tbs. Nori Komi Furikake rice seasoning (optional)

2 Tbs. soy sauce

3 Tbs. sesame oil

2 Tbs. chili garlic sauce

2 tsp. sugar

1 Tbs. sesame seeds

Directions:

Using a sharp filet knife, remove the skin from the salmon filets. If there are any pin bones, carefully remove them with needle nose pliers. Cut the salmon into bite-sized cubes.

Add all the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly. If you are not using the rice seasoning, add salt to taste. If you like a little more kick, add an extra tablespoon of the chili garlic sauce.

Serve immediately or refrigerate for later. Serve with sesame or rice crackers.

For more tasty Alaska recipes, check out my dad’s website.

alaska, Flowers, weddings

Lina + Bill: A Midsummer Kaleidoscope

June 29, 2014 alaskaknitnat 5 Comments

Last year my knitting friend Lina asked if I would design the flowers for her wedding. When she described the colors she wanted there was no way I could say no. She envisioned a wild, rainbow bouquet.

I created a slightly unkempt bouquet of peonies (from her own garden), Japanese asters, mini sunflowers, green trick dianthus, bupleurum, gerber daisies, spray roses, wild daisies, wild grass cattails and wild yarrow.

Lina had saved pussy willow branches from the spring, which I used on the boutonnières.

Billy balls are the perfect accompaniment to fuchsia spray roses and iridescent fuchsia ribbon gave everything a polished look with great pops of color.

Midsummer Kaleidoscope Wedding | Alaska Knit Nat

Because the bride selected so many types of flowers I was left with an excess of product. I decided to make flower crowns for her daughter and niece who were flower girls. My mother models it here.

Marigolds and pale pink rosebuds from my garden were a necessary addition to the garlands.

I had yet even more product, including a full peony (no way I was wasting that!) so I created a draping arrangement in an antique orange vase, which I left on the dining table in the wedding party’s bed and breakfast.

Pink, fuchsia, orange, green, purple and yellow — a magical array of color for a perfect summer day.

Congratulations, Lina and Bill!

I was lucky to find pale pink yarrow growing wild in field by my local grocery store.

alaska, Cooking

Alaska Guide to Boletus Mushrooms

June 23, 2014 alaskaknitnat 14 Comments

It’s nearly mushroom season in Alaska so I thought I’d repost my boletus mushroom guide from my old blog. With a little knowhow, you can join the foraging movement and become a mushroom hunter.

Alaska Guide to Boletus Mushrooms | Alaska Knit Nat

Here is my DISCLAIMER: I’ve been foraging for mushrooms my whole life and I am positive that what I’m picking is edible. I am not a mushroom expert but I can give you great advice on how to discern boletus mushrooms from inedible ones. Pick at your own risk! Some people experience gastric upset after eating boletes even though they aren’t poisonous. Never eat a bolete unless it’s been thoroughly cooked. When in doubt, throw it out!

Feel free to contact me and e-mail me photos of your finds if you ever have any questions. There are quite a few edible mushrooms in Alaska, but I’m only knowledgable about boletus.

So here we go:

Alaska Guide to Boletus Mushrooms

There are several types of boletus mushrooms and you can find many of them in the Anchorage area. Most are edible and the ones that are poisonous will let you know by their scary color.

The U.S. Forest Service has a great Alaska mushroom guide. I highly recommend taking a look at it.

The only inedible boletes I’ve come across in Alaska are boletus luridiformis and boletus coniferarum. Luridiformis is red, which to me is a signal to not eat it. The coniferarum has yellow flesh that when bruised or cut will rapidly turn inky blue. Keep in mind that many edible types of boletus will oxidize, but not nearly as quickly as the coniferarum turns from yellow to blue. It looks pretty cool, but tastes extremely bitter (but will not kill you if eaten).

*Note: a mushroom enthusiast commented on my old blog that the mushroom in the photo below is edible. I would just avoid it if you find it.

Boletus luridiformis

Ok, now that we have the inedibles out of the way, let’s start becoming mushroom detectives. Before you go out and pick these mushrooms, let me prepare you…

You will probably encounter bugs
You will probably encounter little maggots (baby bugs!)
You will probably get dirty and wet

You’ve got to get over these factors if you’d like to carry on.

OK? ok….

First, all edible boletes have sponge under the caps instead of gills. Boletes are the only mushroom in Anchorage forests that have sponge instead of gills besides the hawks wing mushroom, which has hedgehog-like spines underneath (and it’s edible if you boil it, but I’ve never tried it). You can exclude any mushroom with gills because it will not be a bolete. This one fact makes bolete hunting reassuring because there is so much you can rule out. There are deceptive mushrooms that really look like bolete caps, but when you turn them over and see gills, just let them be. They tricked you!

Here are the common types of boletes you’ll come across in Anchorage forests:

Aspen Scaber-stalk — these are found in birch and spruce forests, typically around moss, low-bush cranberry and crow berry bushes. They have sienna-colored caps with dirty-looking stems (almost looks like the texture of a terry-cloth towel). The flesh also tends to oxidize and turn black when cut.

*Note: a person commented on my old blog post that the scaber-stalks can cause gastric upset. I have been picking and eating this mushroom most of my life and never experienced upset stomach, but I thought I should let it be known. I don’t care much for their flavor when fresh; I prefer to dehydrate them and add them to soups.

Aspen scaber-stalk

Stem of most forest boletes

Alaskan Scaber-stalk — these look a lot like the Aspen scaber-stalk but darker with a narrower stem. I don’t care much for these and when I find them, I let them be. They tend to get soggy, slimy and buggy really fast.

Alaskan scaber-stalk

Boletus Mirabilis — I have never encountered this bolete, but thanks to the folks at the Girdwood Fungus Fair, they have provided me with a lovely photo. I’m so excited to try and find some!

King bolete — this is the purest, most prized bolete and is the equivalent of a wild porcino mushroom. These have light brown caps and white stems with no terry-cloth look to them. The sponge will turn yellow with age.

Freaky melded-cap king bolete. Still delicious

King boletes

In addition to the U.S. Forest Service, here is another great site about Alaska boletes.

All right, now let’s set out to find some mushrooms! But where, might you ask? Well, boletes like to grow near spruce roots, birches and in mossy areas. You can often find boletes growing in people’s yards. You usually won’t find them in areas with long grasses and ferns or anywhere with tall vegetation. The trail system in Anchorage is a great place to start. You could also try Thunderbird Falls, Bird Creek and Girdwood.

The best time to pick boletes is from late July to mid-September. Over the years I haven’t found a true rhyme or reason to how boletes grow. Sometimes you’ll have a summer with hundreds of pounds and others you won’t find any. Usually they grow during the rainy and damp times of Alaska summers.

Boletes can grow to be pretty huge, but it’s best to pick them when they are just a couple of days old because bugs love boletes as much as humans do. They will flock to them pretty much as soon as they surface. It’s rare to find a bolete that hasn’t been lived in by a beetle or some sort of fly eggs, but if you pick them early on it doesn’t affect the quality or taste of the mushroom. I’ll show some photos later.

This large bolete was literally teeming with insects and maggots. Didn’t take this one home!

Fresh boletes should have firm stems and caps, but it’s ok if the cap is slightly soft. If you find a really squishy bolete, let it be because the bugs have laid claim to it. Sometimes you’ll find a bolete that’s firm on the cap, but when you look underneath it looks like bugs have taken it over. Not always true! Sometimes the bugs just get into the sponge part of the mushroom, which can be easily removed. Break the cap in half. If the flesh is white and has no holes in it, then keep it. Baby boletes are the best. Their cap and stem are both firm and delicious. They also look totally phallic. I just had to put that out there.

I recommend field dressing your mushrooms as you go. This means bringing a pocket knife along and whittling away the dirty root. I’m lazy and often don’t do this. It just means I’ll have more trash to throw out at home.

Boletes are sturdy so you can collect them in plastic grocery or garbage bags, five-gallon buckets, or if you’re feeling whimsical, in a lovely basket. It’s up to you. Most will say that mushrooms should never be stored in plastic bags (I can see Laurie Constantino shaking her head). I find it easier to tote large quantities of mushrooms around the forest in a plastic bag and it doesn’t seem to affect the quality of my mushrooms. Do not store your boletes in plastic bags for long periods of time. This will create too much moisture and cause them to rot.

When you find a good bolete, pick it by the base of the stem, not by the cap, as you will probably break off the cap and tear away the flesh by accident.

The great thing about picking mushrooms is they literally pop up overnight so many people could pick the same spot and still find a good share. You can usually tell if another bolete hunter has been in the area by the discarded caps and overturned trickster mushrooms. On a recent quest we covered the same ground as another hunter and still came out with nearly 40 pounds of mushrooms!

Once you’ve collected your mushrooms, you’ll have to process them. Here’s how it goes:

Start by whittling away the root of the mushroom to remove any soil. If you come across any bug-eaten mushrooms, either toss them or cut into the stem or cap to see if it’s salvageable. Sometimes the bugs will have only gotten to half the mushroom, so why waste the whole thing? Once you’ve removed the big pieces of dirt, you can run each mushroom under cold water and lightly scrub with a nail brush to remove excess dirt. Only rinse them if you plan to use them right away. Rinsing them and then storing them in the fridge may cause them to rot.

Now comes the part where you need to figure out what you’re doing with your mushrooms. They can be stored in the fridge for a couple of days, but you’ll want to prepare them as soon as you can. If you must store them, be sure to keep them in paper bags so they can breathe.

Boletes should not be eaten raw. They will probably give you an upset stomach. If I’m not cooking with them right away I either sauté the mushrooms in butter, vacuum pack and freeze them or put them in a food dehydrator for a couple of days, bag them up or grind them into porcini powder.

Either way, you’ll need to slice them up. This is where you do most of the work. You might find that lots of your mushrooms are bug eaten. I tend to toss caps that are eaten even in the slightest, but really it’s not gonna kill you so this is a matter of personal preference. You’ll be able to tell if the mushroom is too rotten to eat cause it will look totally gross. But as I said before, you can always try and cut away the nasty bits and keep the good bits. I mentioned before that you can remove the sponge. I do this with most mature boletes because the sponge ends up becoming slimy when cooking. With really new boletes, the sponge is firm and doesn’t need to be removed. It’s a bit like getting to an artichoke heart — the sponge will peel off easily and you’ll be left with the yummy cap.

This king bolete stem has been eaten by bugs. Not salvageable

This aspen cap is nasty. Didn’t keep any of it.

This Alaskan stem was soft and dark as soon as I cut into it. It was not good.

This stem was deceiving because it felt great from the outside, but was eaten up on the inside.

This cap had maggots in the sponge, but the actual flesh was just fine.

See? Looks great! Peel off the sponge and you’ll be fine.

This is the inside of a good king bolete. Some parts have been eaten by a bug, but I wasn’t horrified by it so I kept it.

This Alaskan bolete has oxidized. It’s fine to eat!

This is a fresh king cap. The sponge is thin and firm. It doesn’t need to be peeled off.

Once your boletes have been processed the world is your mushroom! Boletes are great in soups and sauces, but your best bet is to do a Google search for recipes for porcini. If you’ve decided to dry your mushrooms, they will need to be reconstituted when you’re ready to use them. Boil a couple of cups of water or chicken broth and pour over the dried mushrooms in a bowl. Let sit for 20 minutes and reserve the steeped water for your soup. It’ll deepen the flavor even more.

So, that’s my guide to Alaska boletes. Please contact me if you have any questions, comments or even corrections.

And remember, if you’re not extremely positive about a mushroom, don’t eat it. Better safe than sorry!

For more Alaska mushroom information, check out this short film produced by the Alaska Teen Media Institute for the U.S. Forest Service and this terrific article by Laurie Constantino for Alaska Dispatch.

alaska, appetizers, seafood

Wild Salmon Caviar — a family recipe

June 17, 2014 alaskaknitnat 14 Comments

It’s salmon season and for most that means filets, steaks and smoked salmon. We love all that in our family, but as soon as we hear of a friend going salmon fishing we think “roe!” We request that all our fishing friends keep the salmon eggs when they clean their fish and store them diligently on ice until they reach our clutches.

I grew up knowing all about brined salmon caviar: they were stinky, fishy, gooey and gross. But then I grew up and so did my palate. Now they are glimmering orange jewels that pop and melt in your mouth in salty bliss.

My father is the king of salmon roe preparation, so I have decided to reblog his Caviar Mania post from his site sausagemania.com (it’s for real, people). Visit his site for full photo tutorials on preparing sausage, lox, kippered salmon, and pesto.

Fresh King Salmon Caviar

How to Make Delicious Salmon Caviar at Home. Easy Recipes From SausageMania.com!

The designation “caviar” is traditionally applied to the salted, unfertilized roe of wild Caspian Sea sturgeon, a rapidly diminishing resource as neither Russia nor Iran are able (or willing) to end poaching. While Russian and Iranian caviar is an expensive luxury, going for as much as $500 an ounce, lesser caviars, made from the salted roe of salmon, lump fish, whitefish, steelhead, trout and other species of sturgeon, are more affordable substitutes.

CaviarMania is here to teach you how to make Salmon Caviar, specifically, caviar from Wild Alaskan Salmon.

Salmon Caviar is ridiculously simple to make. The most difficult part is getting hold of fresh salmon eggs. Fortunately, here in Alaska, salmon eggs are often discarded, or rolled in Borax, frozen, and used as bait – to catch more salmon, of course. So during the salmon runs in June through August, fresh eggs can be had in abundance if you have the right connections.

If you do not, then you need salmon – fresh, whole, uncleaned, iced salmon, and then you hope most of them are hens, that is, full of eggs. You can do without the fish, if you can tap into a good supply of fresh eggs, which, in Alaska, the home of SausageMania, LoxMania, KipperMania and now, CaviarMania, can often be done if you have fishing friends who are wiling to save the roe for you. A word of caution, however: you must know and trust your roe purveyor to care for the roe. If the fish have been left in the sun for a few hours before being cleaned, or the roe is not immediately iced, you may find youself spending time, energy and salt to produce an inferior product!

Two beautiful skeins of roe!

Removing Roe From a Female King Salmon — The roe is removed from the salmon.

A Bowl of King Salmon Roe

The only tools needed are a few bowls and a screen of 1/4″ or 5/16″ galvanized mesh to fit over one of the bowls, a large strainer and a 1-gallon ZipLoc bag. The only ingredients are the salmon eggs, salt and cold water. The most time-consuming part is pushing the eggs through the mesh. The brining time necessary to prepare the caviar varies from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the eggs and your tolerance for saltiness.

A few words of caution about salmon roe: handle the skeins with care. Keep them cold at all times. Never, never, never freeze salmon roe unless you’re planning to make fish bait. The same goes for the finished product: freezing wrecks the eggs, and is especially harsh on the sensual “pop-ness” of the individual eggs as you eat them. Fresh caviar has a unique texture: you can feel each separate egg on the tongue, and each egg pops with a flavorful explosion. Frozen caviar is “dead.” It’s slushy, slimy and inert.

OK, so now you have several skeins of fresh, cold salmon eggs from a reputable source. From which species of salmon? Eggs from sockeye (red) and pink (humpy) salmon are small, and require less brining time. Eggs from Coho (silver) salmon are larger and require more brining. Eggs from king (Chinook) salmon, and from chum (dog or keta) salmon are the largest, and need the longest time. (Keta eggs are prized by Russians, who feel they make the best salmon caviar.)

Whatever kind of roe you have, you will need a galvanized screen to separate the eggs from their membranous attachment. A galvanized mesh screen with 1/4 – 5/16” holes is the best; cut it to fit tightly over a large bowl. Then get hold of some non-iodized salt. Coarse is better than fine.

Spread each skein, membrane side up, on the screen and work the eggs through the screen and through the mesh with your fingers. Membranes will get caught in the screen, so every now and again, remove the stuck membranes and discard. From time to time, remove the screen, and gently scrape off the eggs hanging from the bottom with a rubber or plastic spatula.

Salt and Mesh For Making Caviar — ust one ingredient: non-iodized salt. Just one tool: a piece of galvanized mesh.

Pushing Salmon Eggs Through Mesh — A skein being positioned on the mesh. The skein will be rotated to put the egg membrane on top.

Pushing Salmon Eggs Through the Mesh — Push the eggs through the mesh.

Next, fill a large bowl with the coldest water you can get and dissolve enough salt in it until you have a saturated saline solution, meaning that there will be undissolved excess salt in the bottom. Pour the separated eggs into the cold brine and gently stir. Set a timer for 10 minutes.

After ten minutes, take a spoonful of eggs and place in a small strainer, then rinse them in running cold water to rinse off the exterior salt. Taste them. If not salty enough, wait another five minutes and taste again. When the eggs are salty enough for your taste, pour them into a large strainer and rinse them with running cold water, gently turning them over and over with your hands to wash off all the outside salt.

Soaking Salmon Eggs in Saline — Now put the eggs in a cold saturated saline solution for 10-30 minutes, depending on size of eggs and your taste for saltiness.

Rinsing Salmon Eggs — Once you’ve sampled the eggs, and gotten them to your level of saltiness, rinse in cold running water to remove surface salt.

At this stage, the eggs still have active osmotic cell walls, so, if you over-salted them, just soak them in cold water for several minutes, and the salt will travel back out of the eggs and into the water. Once you are completely satisfied with the saltiness of the product, place the egg-laden strainer in a large bowl and fill a gallon ZipLoc bag with cold water. Place the bag on top of the eggs and put the bowl with strainer, eggs and ZipLoc in the refrigerator overnight. The weight of the ZipLoc bag packs and compresses the eggs, which helps make them spreadable onto crackers or whatever you wish to spread them on. Now you have caviar! It will last 7-10 days in the fridge, after which it won’t spoil, but will acquire an unpleasant fishy taste. If you have a vacuum packer, you can vacuum-pack the jars, which will allow the product to remain decent from 2-3 weeks, if refrigerated, before becoming “fishy.”

Weighting Down Salmon Eggs — Weight down the eggs with a ZipLoc bag.

Salmon Eggs in Fridge — Store the weighted eggs overnight in the fridge.

Finished Caviar in Sink — The next day, the caviar is compacted.

Filling Jars with Salmon Caviar

A Pyramid of Caviar!

Punching a Hole in a Jar of Caviar

Unless you have a vacuum packer that will evacuate Mason jars, you’ll need to punch a hole in the tops of the jars to let the air out, and vacuum-pack them in bags. They will then keep in the fridge for up to three weeks.

Jar of Caviar in Vacuum Packe — Placing a jar of caviar in the packer.

Salmon Caviar in Refrigerator — The final product safe in the refrigerator.

Now that you’ve finished, what are you going to do with all that caviar? Well, it’ll go faster than you think. You can spread it on crackers, make Blini or Caviar Omelets (but don’t make them “hard” or you’ll ruin the caviar). If you make Blini, serve with iced vodka.

Blini made with Salmon Caviar — Preparing a plate of Salmon Caviar Blini. Blini are Russian pancakes, really the same thing as crepes.

Iced Stolichnaya Vodka — For the quantity of Caviar we just made, we’ll need a lot of Vodka!

Blini Made with Salmon Cavair - Ready to Eat! — Serve the Blini with a dollop of sour cream and some iced vodka. You’ll be surprised how quickly a quart of caviar goes!

Not yet brave enough for salmon eggs? Try my recipe for grilled cedar-plank salmon.

alaska, Flowers

Flower Magic in the Midnight Sun

June 14, 2014 alaskaknitnat 3 Comments

My best friend Kelly and I have a long past of frolicking through the Anchorage woods together. We frolic and collect. Sometimes it’s moss. Sometimes it’s branches, but most of the time it’s flowers.

One great thing about Alaska summers is the endless sunlight. Tonight we decided to go pick daisies on the side of the road. We set out at 9 p.m. By the time we completed a flower crown it was 10 p.m. and still plenty of light for a photo shoot.

Flower crowns are surprisingly easy. All you need is some floral wire, floral tape and small clusters of wildflowers. We used lilac, daisies, beautiful Jacob’s ladder and wild roses.

No tutorial today, but I just wanted to show off my beautiful friend.