Good Eats - #3 Smoked Salmon Chowder (4th Sunday of the Month)

Our favorite restaurant locally has to be Kokopelli's in Port Angeles.  Along with many tasty entrees, they make a fabulous smoked salmon chowder.  I love clam chowder, but this is even better.  After a few tries, we were able to "kopy kat" the recipe and now we have it every 4th Sunday of the month.

Lots of salmon comes through our front door here on the O Peninsula (although this year has been a little skimpy) either from a good fishing trip or from friends.  A good portion of the fish is smoked by the husband and used either in a salmon spread for appetizers or in the smoked salmon chowder.  Every effort is made to use local, fresh ingredients.

Smoked Salmon Chowder

2 cups of small red potatoes, cut into quarters (Nash's Organic Produce, if we are lucky)
1 stick of butter (Sunny Farms Grocery carries a local butter)
1/4 cup diced onion (an eastern Washington treat is the Walla Walla onion, but Nash's for a good wanna-be)
1/4 cup flour  (Nash's actually grinds their own.  I kid you not!)
1 cup of smoked salmon (in pieces and de-boned)
1 tsp salt to taste (Sequim Tea and Spice shop fills my container with coarse sea salt)
16 oz Half and Half (or whole milk)  (Dungeness Creamery is about 2 miles down the road)
several diced stalks of celery (Nash's)

Place potatoes in saucepan and cover with water, cook on medium heat until tender.  (If I am feeling lazy, I let the potatoes cook on low in the slow cooker until they are tender.)  Remove potatoes from heat, drain and set aside.  In 2 quart saucepan on medium low heat to melt butter, add diced onions and celery, cook until onions are slightly clear.  Add flour to butter and stir briskly.  Mixture will start to thicken.  Add half and half a little at a time while stirring briskly.  Mixture should be creamy and thick.  Place salt, salmon, and potatoes in mixture.  Simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring often.

Serve with crusty bread for dipping.  I know dipping is not well-mannered at the dinner table, but let's keep it real.

Enjoy!

Good Eats - #2 (3rd Friday of the Month)

It is strawberry time on the Olympic Peninsula!  One of our favorite meals is prawns, rice with rosemary, and spinach salad with fruit--the latter part of May and June the fruit of choice is strawberries.  Found a great recipe on www.cookingwithruthie.com/2015/04/13/strawberry-spinach-salad-with-lemon-vinaigrette/.  But, I substitute the pecans with walnuts.  All salad ingredients are bought from local farmers except the walnuts.  I know they are grown and sold local, but have not taken the time to hunt them down.  Will do this fall.  [Photo from Cooking with Ruthie--we eat our salad too quickly before I can get a snapshot.]

I wish I could say the prawns were fresh, but we have a strange situation here with seafood.  Unless you catch it yourself (which we often do) the local commercial fishing/harvest is sold directly to the wholesaler, packaged and then shipped to and sold in the local store (usually frozen).  I know, we are right in the heart of fish and seafood country.  Frustrating.  The prawns are good, but they could be better.  The Spice and Tea Exchange of Port Townsend [http://www.spiceandtea.com/port-townsend.html/]  has the best blended seasoning for prawns of chile lime sea salt.

Lemon Vinaigrette for our salad:

• 4 tablespoons olive oil (I use lemon flavored olive oil rather than an additional ingredient of lemon juice*)
• 3 tablespoons honey
• ½ teaspoon sea salt

*Purchased from Spice and Tea Exchange of Port Townsend.

Good Eats - #1

In retirement, I vowed to learn to cook healthy, avoid processed foods, and steer clear of restaurants (unless it is a special occasion and the restaurant is special, too!).  Not just for the two of us, but to share our meal with friends and make a social occasion out of it.  In the beginning, I doubted myself often and relied on the store-bought casserole for guests.  Not any more.  Falling off the healthy meal wagon happens, but not as frequently.

The reason this lifestyle change made it into the blog is (1) I am excited about the success, (2) I like to share my successes to encourage others, and (3) another way to stay active and healthy in retirement which is what this blog is about.

To make this a goal a forever one, the meals have to be simple to make, every-day ingredients, and easy to obtain local/fresh (Mystery Bay Farm goats photo left).  I also had to devise a monthly plan with recipes.  It is documented on my computer tablet calendar to make planning and list making straightforward.  Here is the skeleton plan without the recipe:

Sunday - homemade soup (usually in a slow cooker)
Monday - pork (roast/chops)
Tuesday - ground beef
Wednesday - chicken
Thurday - pasta day
Friday - fish
Saturday - beef (roast/steaks)

From there, a recipe for each day of the month (for example, every second Tuesday of the month is meatloaf, every second Monday is pulled pork, etc).  October through March are the winter recipes; April through September include lighter fare for warmer weather.  Each recipe is tweaked to make healthier and easier.  Once we achieve a great meal, out loud we declare, "It is a keeper!"  (Honestly, we really say it out loud.)  Each meal is planned to serve at least 6 and if we do not have a dinner party, then the leftovers are used for lunches the rest of the week.

This week, our meatloaf recipe is a keeper! (every second Tuesday).  Finally, a recipe without sugar-laden ketchup.(Note:  photo from Wicked Stuffed website, but our meatloaf looks just like this, complete recipe found at www.wickedstuffed.com.) All ingredients purchased local--direct from farmer or Farmer's Market.  Recipe includes ground beef (local beef from www.clarkfarms.weebly.com about 2 miles from home), eggs (fresh eggs from the small farm across the road--they have over 200 chickens running free--often running from the eagles!), scallions, spinach, garlic, onions (from Nash's Organic Produce, www.nashsorganicproduce.com about 2 miles from home in the middle of their farm), herb soft goat cheese (www.mysterybayfarm.com located on Marrowstone Island about 30 miles away, but we buy their cheese from Nash's unless we decide to take a scenic road trip to their farm), coarse salt/peppercorn (Sequim Spice and Tea shop--they sell bulk downtown and fill your container directly), and finally rosemary just out the door which practically grows wild here. 

Mix all except goat cheese and spinach, lay out flat, plop the cheese and spinach in the middle and roll meat mixture around.  (Note:  I do not include the tomato paste in the recipe.) Cook at 450 degrees for 60 minutes.  Verra good!