Blue Gill Tacos on the Patio

After you eat your taco or burrito w/ blackened bluegill, brown or wild rice w/ lime juice and cilantro, black beans, sauteed onions and peppers, avocado and salsa, sour cream, all rolled up in a corn or flour shell, you should sip your after supper brandy on the patio with ice and fresh mint leaves from your herb garden.

 Then take a walk to the mail box with your young brown lab( mostly, tho' he howls instead of barks and he also jumps in a full rotation of joy - a mixed breed for sure w/ diverse responses to various stimuli). He chases, points, bays,catches, flushes.

On your way back from the mail box, peruse the field for the first of the early wild strawberries. Eat those tiny succulent berries and rejoice in the early harvest - 2 or 3 wks early this year. You do not get enough but that makes it even better. Sweetness, a burst of flavor, hope, the promise in blooms and nubbins, of more. I can't wait, but I will because I have no choice.

It is a pleasure to deal with food in this way because I spent so many years making it happen and serving "false foods" from the food purveyors -  the national foodservice distribution companies - while I was in the high volume restaurant business.

The fish bite when they bite, the raspberries are ripe when they are ripe.

 

It is fishing opener and everyone is fishing for walleye but I am fishing for and catching bluegill on a flyrod. They came into the shallows today and the big ones, all males, are biting like crazy. Largemouth bass, too.This is fun. This is great. I caught so many I stopped, feeling guilty.

Fileted and panfried in olive oil, plated,  finished off with white wine, reduced by half, added parsley and tarragon and 3 or 4 pats of cold butter, swirled, poured on filets. Exquisite. 

Fishing Opener's Eve

This is what you want to eat on the night before fishing openers. Jalapeno cheddar brats( from Thielen's in Pierz, Mn,) onions, sweet bell peppers, mushrooms( any kind) and potatoes braised in olive oil and seasoned with salt, black pepper, garlic and sage.Add olive oil to cover bottom of your pan, add all ingredients at once so they all touch the bottom of the pan.

Get your pan and food sizzling hot on the stovetop and finish in the oven . I use a black cast iron pan. A half hour cooking time at 400 degrees will get everything done simultaneously. You can add some beer or white wine to the pan for the final few minutes. Turn the broiler on to brown if necessary. It should be browned and golden and looking good. Wine or beer - not too much ( 1/2 cup) should be reduced to a glaze. You are doing this for an added richness and depth of flavor.

Food has to look good before it tastes good. Strew all with parsley. Put that earnest, masculine repast on the table and serve family style with rustic bread and butter and mustard .

A simple one pan meal which will not take time from equally important considerations - rigging up for tomorrow's opener, plans, strategy, as well as the remembrance and resultant discourse on a lifetime of fishing openers. Don't stay up too late, or do. You only get this day once a year.

Good food, good fishing, family, close friends, a shared history. It doesn't get any better than that.   

Cold Cuts And A Hot Thunderstorm.

Forgive me as I learn the new simplified blogger. Just when you learn how to do it one way, they change it.

This is a plate of cold cut meats -all beef Italian salami, and jalapeno cheddar summer sausage from Thielen's Meat Market in Pierz, Mn - goat cheese, assorted crackers and a halved avocado  seasoned with olive oil, fresh ground black pepper and lemon juice.

A great light lunch or snack on warm spring day on the patio when you don't want to cook. Serve with a glass of wine, your favorite beer, or an apple juice and green tea elixer.

Knockout Sockeye Salmon

It is way too dang cold on this 10th of April, but I grilled salmon outdoors anyway on my little Weber. Copper River Red wild caught sockeye - it was clean and pure looking in its vacuumpak at Thielen's Market in Pierz. A lb and a quarter at 10 bucks a pound. Not bad if it is good. Last years catch, obviously. They are not in season yet. Based on looks and price I bought it.

Salmon is one of those love it or hate it foods. Even for me, a salmon lover. The identical product bought at Meat On Mille Lacs was strong tasting( fishy). Stick with Thielen's or Kenny's self caught sockeye at Lakes Meat and Market in Hillman(10 mi west of Onamia on #27), if you can get it. Call ahead. You will be lucky if you get Kenny's. I eat his seasoned and raw. It is so good you don't have to cook it. 

I didn't even take the skin off.I marinated it in olive oil, lemon juice, black and red pepper, garlic. balsamic vinegar, and worcestershire sauce. For a half hour.

I grilled it on the weber over oakwood coals.Use real wood if you can. It is cheaper, imparts distinctive flavor and is better for you than charcoal. You can use almost any real wood

, such as oak or maple, ash,or elm, or even birch or popple.

I served it with what I call a  Norwegian hollandaise sauce - courtesy of cousin Beth - chopped hard boiled eggs in melted butter, lemon juice, plenty of dillweed, cayenne pepper and garlic.

If your 15 yr old daughter and your 10 yr old grandson like it, it is a winner.They did.

A rule of thumb in cooking fish is 7 minutes per inch of thickness of fish for well done.You want to cook salmon to medium done. Do the math. Flesh side down on grill for 3 minutes( to mark and flavor it); flip to skin side down for 2 minutes. Cover with weber lid 1 min or as necessary each side to reduce flames and provide smokey flavor.You want a nice balance of wood and smoke flavors. The skin will stay on the grill as you remove and plate the filet.

Stay with it and tend it, sip your wine, lift the filet up gently in the middle with a broad spatula to determine degree of doneness.You want this to be perfect. Most importantly, don't overcook it.  

Chocolate Chip Cookies, Adapted, and Red wine

It is midnight on the lake. The loons are singing and the moon is almost full. I am having a glass of red wine and 2 chocolate chip cookies. I love it when it is spring and you get to do what you want.

Use the tollhouse recipe on the bag of chocolate chips, but use half whole wheat flour and half organic white flour and 1/4 the sugar( or honey); add 1/2 teaspoon baking powder along with the half tsp baking soda. The baking powder makes the cookie more like a scone. Add walnuts and cinnamon as well as the vanilla. This cookie is great with a glass of red wine. Whole grain, dark chocolate, walnuts, red wine. Wow.Is it any wonder that the loons are singing.

What a great spring.

Pizza Pie and Lonesome

I miss my daughter who has been with friends and family the last 4 days. We had some 15 yr old issues. I wish she was here to share this pizza. We so enjoy eating together.

Thinking of her I made a pizza like this.

Dough:
3 cups organic, unbleached, unbromated white flour- Bob's Red Mill
1 pkg active dry yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tblsp organic white cane sugar
1 cup warm water
2 tbl olive oil
Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Add water and oil, stir till moistened, knead for about 10 minutes. Form into a ball, wet with additional olive oil, cover and let rise in a warm place till dble in size- 1 to 2 hrs. Halve and flatten and spread dough onto oiled pizza pan or cookie sheet. Prick dough copiously with a fork. Spread more olive oil thinly on top of dough.Save and refrigerate the other half of the dough for tomorrow.
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Topping:

1/2 cup chopped yellow onion
1 cup chopped baby bella mushrooms
1/2 cup chopped sweet bell peppers, red, green, yellow or any
1/2 cup diced tomatoes and green chilies, canned
1 cup finely shredded parmesan or Italian mix cheeses
garlic and basil to taste

Method:
Saute' onions, mushrooms, peppers in additional olive oil until soft , about 10 min over med heat. Strew evenly over pizza dough.

Distribute tomatoes and chilies, garlic and basil over pizza. Top with cheese. Place on lower rack in 450 degree oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until cheese is melted and crust is bronze or brown as desired.I like it a little burnt.

Serve with sour cream as desired.

If my daughter could smell this from 75 mi away perhaps she would come home.