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Salmon Burgers for the sodium challenged

Mar 30th, 2013
by htwollin.
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A couple of years ago, we found a family who live a couple of hours away from us, who have a business whereby they go up to Alaska and fish for salmon. They have it processed up there and sent back and they sell it locally. So, we buy their product because a) it’s cheaper than any wild salmon we can find in stores locally and b) it’s supporting a small local business.

One of the products they sell is a wicked salmon burger (which is probably made out of all the trimmings left over after the fish have been made into filets). These burgers are very tasty, and made with dill and feta cheese. They are a quick and easy dinner – pull them out of the freezer, throw them into a pan on the stove or bake them in the oven, make a salad and another veg and off you go.

Seriously, they are amazingly good. Except for one thing – the amount of sodium in them would stop a horse. Since the DH and I like to watch our sodium intake (yes, your dear Aunty has entered the age when watching the sodium is an important thing), this is very upsetting because we really like those salmon burgers.

So, I threw the kitchen at Chez Siberia into complete chaos today in efforts to figure out something sort of like those salmon burgers but without using a high salt cheese (now, if you can use canned salmon to do this also, you just have to go down to the bit after I’ve worked with the fresh fish – Step 3).

To do this, you will need the following (this makes 8 burgers):
– About 1.5 pounds of salmon fillets, or an equivalent amount of canned salmon
– 1 cup Ricotta cheese, drained (I put mine in a fine sieve in the fridge first thing in the morning for a couple of hours and it worked like a charm)
– 1 Tblspoon of dried dill
– 1 tsp. oregano
– 1/4 c. of breadcrumbs (if you have flavored ones, they tend to mask the flavor of the dill a bit but it still tastes very good)

Step One: Get the skin off the salmon. This is the only somewhat tricky bit.
Holding the fillet skin down, carefully cut at one end down through the fish until you get to the skin.
Flip it over and as you see in the photo at the top, start peeling the skin away with one hand while you carefully slice away the fish from the skin. If you leave some fish on the skin, that is OK — just use your sharp knife to slice that away at the end and throw that into the bowl with the rest of the fish.

Step Two: Chop up the fish.
You can use a food processor for this, but I like to go through fish with my fingers to make sure I have not missed any bones. So, once you’ve done that, if you have a food processor, just throw the fish in, and chop it up. I just used a knife and chopped it as finely as I could. Put the chopped up fish into a big bowl.

Add the Rocottoa, the dill, the oregano and the breadcrumbs, mix it up thoroughly and start making burgers.

I used a half-cup measure and this makes a really nice burger. Remember – this is salmon and the ricotta does not shrink either so this burger will stay nice and big even after cooking. If you want to serve this on a bun (whole grain, please… or GF if you swing that way), you’ll need a regular sized bun. These burgers do not shrink in cooking.

I tried these out both baked in the oven at 375 degrees F. for 20 min. and in a frying pan with a little bit of oil, five minutes on a side. Both methods work fine with these and they tasted great. Did they taste like the commercial feta and dill ones?

No. I have to tell the truth. They don’t. They also don’t have all the sodium, either.
Just for a point of comparison:
1 cup of Ricotta Cheese: 200 mg. of sodium
1 cup of feta, crumbled: 1460 mg. of sodium

So, there you go.

Two Dead Bananas

Jan 29th, 2013
by htwollin.
2 comments

There comes a time, my little wombats, in everyone’s life, when you are left with two bananas which are, shall we say, ‘long in the tooth’ and your ‘go-to’ dead banana recipe calls for three and then, where are you?

Well, for one thing, you are there with two dead bananas and either you give up the ghost and pitch them into the compost heap or, you start thinking about things to do with said objects.

In my case, I decided that there had to be a better way to deal with two bananas when I needed three. And it was not going to be to substitute a third of a cup of apple sauce or some such weeny thing. So, I looked at all sorts of recipes and everyone has this three-banana fetish. I mean, seriously people. Has no one ever ended up with only two?

In any case, here is what I came up with tonight. I needed a fast little something sort of sweet for after dinner and had a limited number of options in the cupboard, yet at the same time knowing that over-ripe bananas can carry their own, taste-wise, in baked goods and a lot of sins can be masked with chocolate.

Two Dead Bananas Chocolate Loaf Cake
Ingredients:
Two old bananas, mushed up
3/4 cup of olive oil (or other good vegetable oil – not corn or soy, please, people)
2/3 cup of sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla
flour (either 1 1/2 cups of cake flour or 1 cup of all purpose)
1 tsp of baking soda
1/2 cup of baking cocoa
1/2 cup of Greek (or other plain) yoghurt
Possibly: orange or other sort of juice to thin things down if you need liquid
1 loaf pan, greased

In a bowl, put:
Olive oil, the eggs, the vanilla and the yoghurt and beat together. Add the mushed up bananas.
Sieve together the flour, the baking cocoa and the baking soda.
Add, bit by bit, the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. You should end up with a batter that is a little bit thinner than banana or other quick bread batter. If it is too thick, add a little bit of juice until it comes to the consistency that clumps off the mixer beaters.

Put batter into the loaf pan. Put pan into a pre-heated 350 degree oven for 50-60 minutes, until the top is humped up, cracked and the center is firm. Take out and cool on a rack. Turn out onto a plate and serve.

This needs nothing. No frosting, no meddling with cherry pie filling or any of that truck. Just plain, moist, unbelievably great smelling and tasting cake with a wonderful crumb. If you can’t serve something without any sort of decoration, sieve a bit of confectioner’s sugar over the top before you start slicing it.

More Veggies: Bean Burgers

Jan 12th, 2013
by htwollin.
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Good morning, my little wombats – in the spirit of making small improvements, your Aunty is offering something that we have had good luck with here at Chez Siberia: The Bean Burger. Now, if you have tried so-called ‘veggie burgers’ in the past and have not been really pleased with them, you and your family might want to try these. They are cheap, taste good, and certainly go a long way to replacing a meat-based meat if that is something your family is trying to do these days. (more…)

Bean Cooking Tip of the Day: Clean ‘em before you soak ‘em

Nov 3rd, 2012
by htwollin.
1 comment

One of the ‘complaints’ (disadvantages? annoyances?) about cooking with dried beans is that you have to wash and soak them before you cook them. And you need to cook them ‘low and slow’ for a very long time.

Well, here’s another one, but no one should allow this particular step to stand in their way of making beans from scratch: You really need to go through them and get out all the pebbles and rocks. I cleaned up a batch of beans to start this morning and this is what I got: A bunch of rocks that were bean-sized (makes sense – the screens that the bean processors use would hold back anything larger than a bean, so anything bean-sized or smaller would go through) and a bunch of teeny pebbles.

Any of which, should someone (and with your Aunt Toby’s luck on this, c’est moi) bite into a forkful of beans with one of these items in it, could probably cause a chipped or broken tooth and a very expensive trip to the dentist. I don’t know how much that sort of a trip costs where you live but considering the cost locally, I’ll take the 5 minutes to clean. And making beans from scratch is so much better than using canned (if nothing else, you’ll avoid all the sodium, which no one needs) that it’s worth it.

How to clean dried beans and peas:
You will need the following: A light colored dinner plate, a large bowl, a colander and beans.

Step One: Put a handful of beans on the plate and move them around. Anything that is not the same color, shape or size as the other beans goes out. Those things will be either ‘sick beans’ (which you wouldn’t want anyway), rocks or dirt. When you’ve cleaned those beans, slide them into the bowl and go on with more beans until you have cleaned them all.

Step Two: Put the colander in the sink. Put enough water (at this point, temperature of the water does not matter) in the bowl with the beans to cover and using your hands, swish them around to wash. Pour the whole mess into the colander and run tap water through that. Pour the beans back into the bowl and repeat this process two more times. Your beans are now CLEAN. Now you can cover them with hot water and soak them so that you can cook them.

There you go; you’ve just avoided a trip to the dentist. You can thank me later.

Fast and Furious: Are you ready for Sandy?

Oct 25th, 2012
by htwollin.
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This is a quick and dirty post, pulling up several of what I think are the most useful of my prior posts of being ready for weather related emergencies. For readers living between about North Carolina and Maine, I think you need to think seriously about what will hit late in the weekend up through Tuesday according to the National Weather Service (or whatever weather provider you trust).

If nothing else, I think we can all count on losing the power.

So here are my best thoughts on getting prepared. If nothing else, you’ll get a good laugh with the video. Stay safe, my friends.

No power – cook with your grill
Snowbound
Are you ready

Beans, in black and white

Jul 22nd, 2012
by htwollin.
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Look into my eyes (you’ll have to do your own Transylvanian accent here, I’m afraid) and repeat after me…. “Beans are not just for chili and soups…beans are not just for chili and soups…”

You’re feeling your eyes getting heavier…and heavier…..

OK, enough of the hypnosis. I realize that there are readers who suspect that your Aunty is obsessed with beans. I love beans. But I realize a lot of people do not have the same affection for them that I do.

Well, today is YOUR day. I don’t know how anyone can say “Nyet” to a piece of cake that has:
No gluten
No processed sugar
A whole lot of fiber and protein
And tastes yummmmmmmy.

Now, when I did my quick and dirty search for desserts made with beans, the most popular item was brownies made with black beans. (more…)

A slaw by any other name

Jul 8th, 2012
by htwollin.
1 comment

OK, peoples!! The word ‘slaw’ is derived from the Dutch word for salad, so a slaw is a slaw is a slaw. Cole slaw (or, as some folks in the South refer to it, merely ‘slaw’) is shredded cabbage salad. The addition of carrots and oddments such as raisins (was this to get children to eat it?) is, as my father used to say, ‘commentary’, but it all comes down to shredded cabbage.

Now, here in the US, we seem to have two schools of thought on cole slaw (at least from the dressing side): mayonnaise-based dressings or vinegar-based dressings. I did a little bit of research and from what I can find, the original dressings used in Holland for cole slaw were cooked dressings containing eggs, sugar, flour, vinegar, salt, pepper and butter. Except for the flour, ‘mayo’ is not that far off the mark. However, some of us want something a little bit less creamy, which is where the vinegar-based salad dressings started to come into play.

Now, except for raisins (which I have rather strong opinions on in terms of cole slaw), your Aunt Toby is a ‘anything goes’ sort of slaw person. I’ve used everything from the cabbage family up to and including Chinese cabbage, kohlrabi, red and green cabbage, and broccoli, plus carrots. The bowl at the top of the page contains green cabbage, the stems from a couple of heads of broccoli, a quarter of a red onion, and three carrots. The total amount almost filled the bowl of my KitchenAid mixer. A whole lot of slaw.

For the dressing, I went light tonight – we were eating hamburgers and the thought of heaping mayo-based dressing on that did nothing for my appetite. Here’s the dressing I used and and because this is lemon juice based rather than vinegar-based it is bright and flavorful.

Lemon-ginger Slaw Dressing
The juice from one large lemon
2 T of sugar
1 handful of chopped fresh parsley (if you haven’t got it, it’s not a great loss, believe me)
1 T of LIGHT olive oil (the sort used for saute-ing or baking – don’t use virgin or extra-virgin in this)
Grate up some fresh ginger (about an inch or an inch and a half of one of the fingers) and use a loosely packed tablespoon

Mix all of that up in a bowl and taste. If this tastes too sweet, you can add more lemon juice or up to a 1/4 cup of cider vinegar to balance it off – this should taste just a little bit tart/sweet, with a ginger overtone to it. Bright, fruity taste.

How to get more veggies into your diet

Apr 22nd, 2012
by htwollin.
2 comments

Aunt Toby is NOT here today to flog y’all with the ‘you ought to eat more green stuff’ message.

We all know it. It’s like flossing your teeth. And we don’t do it and we don’t do it and we feel guilty and then we go to the doctor and the doctor tells us we need to eat more fruits and veggies and we go round and round and do that dance and in the end… it’s still burgers and fries, right?

Right. And if we have kids in the house, it’s even worse.

So, here’s the deal — let’s start with what works, especially if you have kids.

First Principals: If you have kids at home and you don’t eat veggies, they will not eat veggies. If you have babies at home, then you have your best shot at getting them to eat veggies by feeding them veggies off your plate. Mommy and Daddy eat veggies – it’s safe for YOU to eat veggies. (more…)

Bread Flour Bake Off

Apr 18th, 2012
by htwollin.
3 comments

One of the more interesting things going on in the food world in the US is that region by region, state by state, farmers have made the decision to go back to growing fruits, veggies and grains that were grown in their areas a long time ago. Considering what can happen with climate change and bad weather in any particular growing season in any particular region, having more people growing more different stuff in more different areas is actually a good thing. Think of it as mutual funds for food. (more…)

Where Aunt Toby tells you to give up canned goods for the holidays

Dec 9th, 2011
by htwollin.
2 comments

In the Northern Hemisphere, right now is the coldest, darkest, most depressing time of the year, which is why we have people doing everything from lighting bonfires, stringing electric lights, and entertaining anyone who wanders by with food and drink. All in the service of bringing back the sun (or the spring, or whatever belief system you ascribe to). And since most of us do not have time to do much of anything at this time of the year, what with all the bonfire lighting and light stringing and carol singing (who WAS Carol, by the way? Why aren’t these songs called “Barbara” or “Ermentrude” or some other woman’s name?), any ideas which will help in the time saving area are worthy indeed. Here is one.

Slow cooker. (more…)

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