Here Fishy Fishy...Canning Yukon Lake Trout

It’s the last day of summer vacation before it’s back to school. It’s been a spectacular summer. The weather was gorgeous, well, after it decided to stop snowing in May! It was the kind of summer that comes along once every 10 years as far as being consistently hot and sunny. The other bonus is that the forest fire smoke, which I usually associate with hot weather, was minimal. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to spend a lot of time outdoors: walking the dog, camping, going to the lake, fishing, canoeing, hiking, road tripping, etc. It’s been great. I feel refreshed and ready to start another year.

The reflection on Mayo Lake was crystal clear!

Part of that outdoor time included a recent fishing trip to Mayo Lake with my friend, Amberley and my hubby. We camped on Gull Island for 5 days. Again, the weather was great as we set out to catch some trout. We love our lake trout! We caught 10 fish total, which were all decent in size. Still searching for that elusive 40 pounder though... We weren’t sure what we were going to do with them. We love to eat lake trout fresh but find that it just isn’t the same if it’s been frozen. I usually smoke our trout, which is delicious, but this year I thought I would preserve it in jars instead so that I could have a ethical and sustainable alternative to buying canned tuna or salmon. As well, canned trout is a little more practical for every day consumption than smoked trout, which is more of a treat for special occasions.

A nice trout for eating!

I am totally new to canning/jarring. I’ve jarred some jelly before but that’s the extent of it. In anticipation of canning/jarring something this year, I picked up a copy of the Complete Book of Home Preserving put out by Bernardin (the jar company). I already have a canning kit (big pot, rack, funnels, magnetic for putting on lids, etc.), which has gone mostly unused since I bought it a couple years ago. The thing with canning fish, however, is that because it is low in acidity and can easily spoil, it needs to be canned in a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers scare me! Don’t people make bombs with these things?! Anyways, I was a little hesitant but I bought one. People have been using these things for over a hundred years after all. 

My new pressure cooker,

After perusing several recipes in books and online, I decided to go with the recipe on page 394 of the Bernardin book. I wanted to keep the recipe simple so that the wonderful flavour of the fish would not be lost in the seasoning. In this recipe, the fish is simply brined in a salt water solution for an hour, packed into jars, and then pressure cooked for the allotted time. Of course, as Amberley and I are both novices, there was a lot of second guessing and questions. All I can say is, what on earth did people do before Google and YouTube?! The other thing with using a pressure cooker, is if you suspect that you’re doing something wrong, you can’t just lift the lid and take a peek!

Page 394- Canning fish

In any case, the fish turned out! Rich, tender, flavourful. I’m so pleased we went this route. I can’t wait to explore some recipes that call for canned tuna or salmon and use this gorgeous canned trout. 

Fish cut up and soaking in brine.

Jars waiting to be filled.

Stuffing the jars.

Beautiful looking fish!

Pressure cooker is full.

The end result!

This past weekend was Discovery Days, a territorial holiday, which celebrates the discovery of gold in the Klondike. One of the events as part of these celebrations was the Horticultural Exhibition, which celebrates local food production. Now obviously my garden was not going to produce any entries. However, I noticed that one of the categories was Canned Goods & Preserves- Meat & Fish. I thought, what the heck, I’ll take down a jar. As fate would have it, our canned trout won first place! Okay, it was the only entry but I’ll take it. I’ve been wearing my ribbon around every since... It truly is award winning fish!

First Place ribbon!

I think canning might be addictive. When I went down to the Horticultural Exhibition to retrieve my trout, a guy offered me some cucumbers. What did I do? I came home and made pickles. Then as I was making pickles and had some pickling solution leftover so I thought I’d make some pickled carrots. Today I whipped up some salsa and at some point this week, I’m going to get canning up some tomatoes. It’s harvest time in the Klondike! Love it! Happy Discovery Day!

Vive le Farmer’s Market!

It’s early August and our local farmer’s market is in full swing. Last week I arrived late but still managed to pick up romaine lettuce, kale, radishes, english cucumbers, zucchini and basil. I couldn’t help but get the feeling that I missed out on a few things as I noticed all the empty bins. This week I got there right at 11a.m. Holy hoards, Batman! Hoards of people! Hoards of food! I probably picked up more than I needed but I just couldn’t help myself. Potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, peppers, fennel, radishes, peas, carrots, green onions. I’m set! You might have to wait in line but what a treat! If only I could successfully grow some of these things myself.

Bounty of the week!

My dad grew up on a small farm in rural Alberta. During my childhood, I was regaled with romantic stories about life on the farm. Growing up in the Yukon, I had a blissful ignorance about what living on a farm might actually entail. There weren’t too many farms around that I was aware of. As I moved into adulthood, I came to realize that not all was butterflies and rainbows down home on the farm. However, my dad had this innate ability to cast this wonderful portrait of a bygone era filled with fanciful images, characters and adventures. He made magic out of the dung pile. It couldn’t be that hard! Thanks to dear papa, I’ve always sort of felt that there was a little farm girl somewhere inside me. 

Naturally, when I built my house a couple years ago, I also build several raised garden beds and a green house. I had all these visions of bountiful harvests and going back to that pioneer lifestyle of providing for myself. The thing is, I never grew up gardening. My parents don’t garden. So really, I have really no idea what I’m doing.

The first year, my garden made more food then I knew what to do with. It was great! I got this idea in my head that gardening was easy. It must have been a bumper year...

The second summer I was getting married, I was incredibly busy and didn’t have much time to take care of the garden. I planted some potatoes and other vegetables that I figured didn’t need much tending to. It was not a bumper year. The potatoes were small and few. It was winter before my other vegetables had the chance to produce anything. I also started to get the impression that there was something wrong with my soil. It was growing moss on top and it was very dense. I don’t think the roots could grow. I’m still figuring out what is wrong with the soil. I have consulted a few people. Perhaps the soil is too acidic. Perhaps I added to much peat moss. Maybe I should add some ash or manure or compost or dolomite? I’m working on it but apparently these things can’t be cured over night. 

It probably doesn’t help that I often leave town in the summer months. You see, I’m a teacher so I have summers off. It’s really the only time of year where I can travel. So, unfortunately for my garden, it goes for periods of time trying to survive on its own. That also makes it hard to determine if the soil is the problem or just lack of water. 

This year, shortly after the garden was planted, I left town for 3 weeks. I came back and most of it had never gotten off the ground as the little plants just shriveled up and died. What did survive were the plants that had had a head start because I bought them as seedlings. The lettuce was fine, as were the zucchini and the sunflowers. What didn’t survive were the herbs, except a couple dwarf basil plants- no, dwarf is not the variety! About half the carrots didn’t make it. The tomatoes are growing fine, except they never got pruned and are sort of tilted over. I’m not sure how productive they will be. The kale seems to be doing well. Then I left again for a couple weeks. Upon my return this time, my radishes had all gone to seed as well as what did come up from my mesclun lettuce mix. I’m sort of feeling like the mass-murderer of plants. Maybe I’ll just stick to kale. It doesn’t seem to suffer abandonment issues like my other vegetables.

To make a long story short, it appears I’m not quite the farmer that I imagine myself to be. I’ve got a ways to go before I will be producing a bountiful cornucopia from my own backyard. In fact, my gardening skills seemed to have actually gotten worse over these past couple years. Thank goodness for the farmer’s market!

Even though our local farmer’s market only has a few vendors, they produce quite a variety of vegetables. I’m always impressed by the size and quality of the produce that comes out of the Dawson area. In fact, I sometimes wonder why I even bother with my own garden when I can buy everything I might need at the market.

Comparing farmer’s market vegetables to the produce in the store, the locally produced stuff is vastly superior as well. I don't understand why more people don’t shop at farmer’s markets! I've heard some people claim that it's more expensive. But is it really? Obviously I’m biased because I don’t have a big family to feed and I place a great importance on food so I don’t mind spending good money on quality products. However, I feel that people generally (and I’m guilty of it too) waste a lot of food. It goes bad in the fridge before you can use it. The beauty of the produce from the farmer’s market is that it is so much fresher that it actually lasts longer! So actually, you do waste less, which has to be more economical! 

As local produce hasn’t travelled thousands of kilometres, it is fresher and also has not burned nearly as many fossil fuels to arrive on your plate. On this topic, I’ve really started paying closer attention to labels in stores to see where food is actually coming from. You can get a lot of good produce from our southern Canadian provinces if what you need is not available at the farmer’s market. They are a lot closer than California or better yet Chile or South Africa! If you can eat food in season and try to get food from as close to home as possible, you are doing your part to minimize your impact on the environment and are therefore eating more ethically.

The other thing I enjoy about the farmer’s market is supporting the local economy. You know the sad part? Our local producers actually throw out a ton of produce each year because they can’t sell it! I think I’m going to try jarring some local tomatoes this year so that I have a supply for the winter months and that way I can avoid buying canned tomatoes from elsewhere. I’ve never jarred anything except jam so it should be interesting. Speaking of jarring, we are headed out to our favourite fishing hole today. Yes, I’m leaving my garden to its own devices once again...  Depending on our catch, I just may try jarring some trout as well. I suppose it is possible to embrace that pioneer lifestyle even if your gardening skills are somewhat lacking.

À bientôt!

'O Glorious Summer of Cheese, part deux

I’m just going to come right out and say it: I had a little freak out. A child-like tantrum. Burned milk, too much rennet? No, it was over my inability to count to 8. 8 litres of milk. It was pretty sad. But making cheese is stressful! Especially when you’re making a cheese you’ve never made before, you’re doing it by yourself, you have nobody to consult with, and you can’t just run out to the store and get more milk if you mess it up. Like a child, I also recovered almost instantly. I realized that I just had to chill out. However, when you’ve been building something up in your mind, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. But I’m cool now. I survived. I’m okay and so is the cheese. So for any would-be cheese makers out there, I’d say: approach it like a big experiment, don’t beat yourself up and try to enjoy yourself! It’s not nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be once I just relaxed a bit. That was the feta. Now that I’ve got one batch under my belt, I think I can tackle future batches with more confidence. 

In any case, I won’t go step by step to explain how I did the feta because what you need to know is already online. I used this kit to make my feta: http://www.makecheese.ca/products/feta-kit-make-10-batches-of-homemade-feta 

If you’re more curious about the process, the instruction sheet that accompanies the kit is here: http://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0172/8570/files/Recipe_MAKE_CHEESE_Feta_1.pdf?67

Here are some pix:

Milk has reached 93 degrees F (33 degrees C). Put down the camera and add the feta culture & calcium chloride!

Cover and keep warm while the culture ripens giving it that feta flavour!

Add rennet, let it sit again for another hour then slice it up.

Look at all that curdy goodness!

Stir, let it settle then transfer to molds lined with cheesecloth.

Two chunks of feta draining overnight. One is being weighted down.

Looks like feta

Cut, salted, & draining/drying.

Feta stored in brine. Ready to eat! Yum!

The mozzarella making was much more smooth. I followed the instructions from the cheese making course. See Goats Do Roam post. All was well. The only thing about the mozzarella was that when we made it in the class we wore gloves. When I made it at home I didn’t wear gloves. When you’re stretching the cheese, it’s VERY hot. I think the gloves absorb some of the heat. Next time I will track down some gloves for my poor little fingies.

Five little discs of mozzarella ready for the freezer. One ready for eating!

My only issue with cheese making in general is that it takes a heck of a lot of milk to make a fairly small amount of cheese. That’s fine for cheeses like feta where you generally only use a little bit at a time. But mozzarella? I could eat what I made in one sitting! Anyways, I froze the mozzarella in an attempt to slow down my consumption. If I ration it out a bit, maybe it’ll last longer? I think the feta will be fine in the brine. They are both so fresh and delicious. I'm convinced it's even tastier because I know exactly what is in it! Guess I need to get some more goat’s milk.