What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? (2016–)

[YvetteMT]

This is the start to a long weekend of preserving- cowboy candy, quick pickled red onions,and smoked salmon will all be done by Monday.

To start- marinated mushrooms from @HungryChris

Little odd color from using red pepper Italian dressing.

[FauxPas]

On 8/5/2024 at 1:41 PM, Shelby said:

Yes!  That's Nirvana.  I used to grow Silver Queen, and while it's really good, Nirvana is now my favorite and I only plant that.   The kernels are bigger and juicer and sweeter.

 

The largest of our local farmstands is operated by the Sieffert family. They grow several varieties of corn each year to extend the harvest times. I think Bolt was one of the earliest and not sure what they have today but here is one of their mid-season ones:  🙂

 

 

 

[YvetteMT]

The start of smoked salmon-

 

these are both Kings aka Chinook.

The bottom bright color fish is from Alaska. The top anemic looking fellow is a hatchery fish, Caught in freshwater at Fort Peck Lake in Montana. Many decades ago, someone decided that FT Peck needed a bigger draw for anglers. So there is a non-reproducing population of Kings in MT. These fish have no access to saltwater and so fish biologists "milk" eggs and milt from the population, and make baby fish at the hatchery. Those baby fish (fry) grow into fingerlings (not potatoes) and get dumped back into the lake. 

(I have not eaten one of these hatchery Kings before,  no clue how they taste compared to their vibrant wild relatives)

 

I'll be picking bones and trimming for a few hours,  I've got 4 or 5 fish to prep.

[Senior Sea Kayaker]

@YvetteMT

To be honest I'm surprised that this sort of practice still goes on. Introducing non native fish species to an area, usually with 'the best of intentions', usually has unforeseen consequences and very few of them good.

Examples I can think of offhand are the deliberate  introduction of small mouth bass to northern Ontario lakes and pushing out the native lake and brook trout, the deliberate introduction of lake trout in Yellowstone and many cases of the accidental or plain stupid ones such as sea lampreys into the Great Lakes, Asian carp seemingly everywhere, snakefish, rock bass......

Just my opinion.

Do you cold or hot smoke your salmon? 

 

[YvetteMT]

@Senior Sea Kayaker I wholeheartedly agree with you. 110%.  Give humans a way to exploit the ecosystem to make a$ and we will. 

 

Cold or hot?

Both. I start the fish with a smoke tube then kick the smoker on later. I love lox, partner would rather eat rusty nails. So, I start cold, pull a piece (or 3) for myself and then the rest get another dose of smoke, hot the second time.