Alaska Fish Tacos (photo courtesy of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute)

Do you have a great fish taco recipe that uses wild Alaska seafood, Sitka’s premier local food? If so, that recipe might earn you a trip to Los Angeles to serve your winning dish.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute is sponsoring the contest, in partnership with celebrity chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feninger of Los Angeles-based Border Grill. The grand prize winner will fly to LA to serve his or her fish tacos alongside the chefs on their gourmet taqueria on wheels, the Border Grill Truck. All recipes must use at least one type of wild Alaska fish in a tortilla (so a burrito or quesadilla will work, too). For more details about the contest, go to http://www.alaskafishtaco.com/.

The recipe contest opened in November and runs through Monday, Jan. 31, 2011. Submit your recipe through the www.alaskafishtaco.com site, which also has videos and a few recipes from the chefs. In addition to the grand prize winner, there also will be a People’s Choice contest that starts on Feb. 15, 2011. The winner of the People’s Choice contest receives and Apple iPad.

If you have a great fish taco recipe using fish caught in Sitka, send the recipe and a photo of your masterpiece to charles@sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org. We don’t have any prizes, but the best recipes will be posted on the Sitka Local Foods Network site. Personally, I like a smoked king salmon quesadilla or a salmon taco with mango/peach salsa.

Hungarian cabbage noodles

A Hungarian cabbage noodles recipe from Sitka resident Keith Nyitray

• Another recipe from Keith Nyitray — Broccoli pesto/dip

It’s September and, at least in my garden, it’s time to start harvesting cabbages. I love cabbages. Being one of the many members of the Brassica family, cabbage is easy to grow and cultivate in Southeast Alaska and does well without any real special attention. Just keep the deer and slugs away.

Whether used in soups or stews, made into sauerkraut or ’slaw, cabbages are a surprisingly good source of vitamin C, riboflavin, (vitamin B12) and glutamine (which has anti-inflammatory properties).

Below is a very simple yet hearty meal that can stand alone or be served with other meats and/or vegetables. Adding the dill or caraway seeds is a matter of personal taste. Personally, I like to use the dill seeds that I’ve already dried and stored from my previous years’ garden.

Hungarian Cabbage Noodles
(makes 6-8 servings)

1 medium sized head of cabbage – shredded
1/2 cup butter (melted)
1 tbs. sugar/honey
salt/pepper
12 oz. egg noodles, freshly cooked
1 tbs. dill or caraway seeds (optional)

Halve, then core the cabbage. Slice each half of the cabbage into half-inch strips, rotate and then cut those strips into thirds.

Melt butter in a Dutch oven or large pot over medium heat. Add cabbage, dill/caraway seeds (optional), and sauté until cabbage is almost translucent and lightly browned. Note: the volume of cabbage will have shrunk considerably.

Mix in salt, pepper, sugar/honey (to taste). Add noodles and toss to combine.

Reduce heat to low and stir until warmed through.

Serve immediately.

Do you have a favorite seafood recipe? A recipe you are willing to share? One that you would like to see published in a cookbook?

We want it!

The inaugural Sitka Seafood Festival will be Friday and Saturday, Aug. 6-7, 2010. It will be a celebration focusing on Alaska’s wild seafood through entertainment, education and culinary delights.

As a fundraiser for the festival, we are putting together a local cookbook. The focus will be on seafood recipes, however, we want a well-rounded cookbook with recipes for appetizers, beverages, soups, salads, vegetables, main dishes, breads and rolls, desserts and miscellaneous dishes.

Please e-mail your recipes to sitkaseafoodfestival@gmail.com or mail them to Linda Olson at 230 Observatory Street, Sitka, Alaska, 99835 by Monday, May 24th. Please put your name on the recipe and include your contact information.

Thank you.

For more information about the festival, check out our website at http://sitkaseafoodfestival.org/ and our page on Facebook.

Dr. Sonja Koukel of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service's Juneau office displays some wild berry preserves

Preserving Alaska’s Wild Berries

By Dr. Sonja Koukel, PhD
Health, Home & Family Development Program
UAF Cooperative Extension Service, Juneau Office

_____

Is your freezer teeming with berries harvested last season? If so, now is the time to preserve them in jams, jellies, or syrups. As the winter days grow darker and shorter, preserving berries provides an emotional uplift as the activity brings with it memories of sunshine and relaxing hours spent in the beauty that is Alaska.

While freezing is an acceptable preservation method for berries, it is not the most economical and there is the risk of power outages that could compromise the storage time. Freezing is the least time consuming method of food storage than canning.  However, when foods are home canned, they enjoy a longer shelf life, can be stored at room temperature, and are not affected by power outages.

Berries are a high acid food; therefore jams and jellies can be processed quickly and easily using the boiling water canning method. In this method, filled jars are covered with boiling water and heated to an internal temperature of 212 degrees (F). At this temperature, bacteria, yeasts and molds that could be a health hazard or cause the food to spoil are destroyed. Additionally, the hot water inactivates enzymes that cause foods to spoil. The canning process removes air from the jar and a vacuum seal is formed when the product cools. The seal prevents air from getting back into the product, bringing with it microorganisms that could recontaminate the food.

As mentioned, removing the air from the jar is important as microorganisms will not thrive in an anaerobic environment. Presented with these facts, some individuals question the “inversion” method that is often included along with the directions found in purchased packages of pectin. According to this method, the filled, hot jars are turned upside-down after the rings have been screwed onto the tops. After five minutes, the jar is turned upright to cool, after which it is stored on pantry shelves. The problem with this method is that the air has not been exhausted from the jar, which can encourage mold growth. To ensure food quality and safety, all jellied products are processed in a boiling water canner.

Recipes for jams and jellies are available in packages of pectin, cook books, magazines, and food preservation guides. For Alaska berries, check out the UAF Cooperative Extension Service publication, “Collecting and Using Alaska’s Wild Berries and Other Wild Products.” A best-seller, this publication provides berry facts, storage and preservation methods, and recipes. Blueberries, currants, highbush cranberries, and red huckleberries can be found along with fireweed and wild roses. Over the holiday season, the “Berry Book” is offered at the reduced rate of $7. Contact your district office or place an order online at  http://www.uaf.edu/ces/pubs

If you have never preserved jams or jellies, or would like to review the process, visit the UAF Cooperative Extension Service website for fact sheets that can be downloaded free to your home computer: http://www.uaf.edu/ces/pubs/catalog/. Newly released educational modules can be viewed online: http://www.uaf.edu/ces/preservingalaskasbounty/index.html.

Alaska wild berry preserves are a great treat

Monday’s issue of the Daily Sitka Sentinel also featured a press release about a put-the-garden-to-bed work party the Sitka Local Foods network is hosting from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 17, at the St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm.

On Tuesday, the Alaska Public Radio Network’s statewide call-in show “Talk of Alaska” was about food security and during the show the work of the Sitka Local Foods Network was mentioned. The Talk of Alaska topic on food security was a preview of the Bioneers In Alaska conference this weekend (Oct. 16-18) in Anchorage where food security will be one of the topics. Kerry MacLane, president of the Sitka Local Foods Network, is supposed to travel to Anchorage to participate in the conference.

In addition to the Sitka Local Foods Network mentions, there has been a lot of other local foods news around Alaska this week.

In Sunday’s Juneau Empire, Ginny Mahar (a chef at Rainbow Foods) wrote a column featuring a mac and cheese recipe with king crab. Ginny also writes the Food-G blog, which features a lot of local foods recipes for Southeast Alaska.

Also in Sunday’s Juneau Empire was an article about the Alaska Native Brotherhood/Alaska Native Sisterhood Grand Camp meeting in Juneau and discussion about subsistence fishing rights following the recent arrest of Sen. Albert Kookesh.

In this week’s Capital City Weekly, there is an article from Carla Peterson about the chocolate lily and how to prepare this edible plant for food.

In the Alaska Newsreader blog Wednesday on the Anchorage Daily News Web site was a link to a feature from TheDailyGreen.com, which listed Anchorage ninth among U.S. cities in per capita space given to community gardens. The list (opens as PDF document) was compiled by the Trust for Public Land, and it had a distinct Northwest feel with Seattle ranked No. 1 and Portland, Ore., was No. 2. Click here to learn more about Anchorage’s community gardens program.

In his Anchorage Daily News garden column last week, Jeff Lowenfels wrote about planting garlic now for spring flowers and an August crop.

The Mat-Su Frontiersman recently ran an article about a sustainability project at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Mat-Su College where students were gathering organic spuds.

Finally, while this isn’t about Alaska, you might want to read an article about efforts to preserve our biodiversity so we don’t lose more food plant varieties and why these efforts are important.

Click here to read a Capital City Weekly article on a new community garden being built behind the Glory Hole homeless shelter in downtown Juneau.

Click here to read a Capital City Weekly article on the Montessori Borealis Adolescent Program’s vegetable garden project in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley.

Click here to read a story about a couple of upcoming University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service classes this weekend in Juneau about how to market specialty food products (geared toward people selling at farmers markets).

Click here to read a Capital City Weekly article on home canning of crab and geoducks by Sonja Koukel of the Juneau office of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service.

Click here to read a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story from Wednesday’s paper from Roxie Rodgers Dinstel of the Fairbanks office of the UAF Cooperative Extension Service about how fireweed (which grows wild in Sitka) can add a subtle flavor to different meals.

Click here to read a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story from Tuesday’s paper about how Fairbanks students are turning their schoolyards into blooming gardens as part of the EATING (Engaging Alaska Teens IN Gardening) program run by the Calypso Farm and Ecology Center. Click here to read more about the EATING program on the Calypso Farm site.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner had a nice story on the arrival of blueberry season in Wednesday’s paper. The story includes four recipes from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service.

Alaska has a deep and abiding love for its wild blueberries. Blueberries are on several lists of “super foods” because they have very high numbers of antioxidants, which help protect us from disease. Blueberries also have a high level of vitamin C. It’s easy to see why Alaska Natives have included blueberries in their diets for centuries.

Blueberries have all this, and they’re yummy, too.

Click here to read the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner article about the arrival of blueberry season

Click here to learn about the booklet “Collecting and Using Alaska Wild Berries and Other Wild Products,” which is available from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service

Broccoli pesto/dip made by Sitka resident Keith Nyitray

A broccoli pesto/dip recipe from Sitka resident Keith Nyitray

What a wonderful year for gardening! If your garden is anything like mine this year, you probably ended up with an overabundance of broccoli. You’ve sold or given your broccoli away, gorged on steamed broccoli, made broccoli quiche, broccoli rarebit, cream of broccoli soup, and maybe even blanched and frozen some for the winter. And STILL the plants keep producing, especially those side florets!

Well, here’s a variation of pesto that stores well and can easily be transformed into a great dip for other fresh vegetables from your garden. The best thing about this “recipe” is that amounts aren’t written in stone. Feel free to play around with it. Personally I like to toast my pine nuts and double the amount of garlic!

Broccoli Pesto/Dip

3 cups broccoli florets
1/3 cup olive oil (or more as needed)
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup pine nuts (walnuts also work)
1/4 cup fresh parsley (optional)
2 or 3 large cloves of garlic
1 teaspoon salt (sea salt if you have it)
1/4 teaspoon pepper
splash of lemon juice

Steam the broccoli in a medium saucepan until bright green and just slightly tender, drain and immediately rinse in cold water. (You can also cook the florets in a skillet with a pinch of salt, olive oil, and a little bit of water to retain the maximum amount of nutrients. Do not rinse.)

Place the broccoli, half the olive oil, and the rest of the ingredients in a blender or food processor and purée. While blending, drizzle in as much olive oil as is needed to reach a smooth, almost creamy, consistency. (Note: if you’ve got a small blender like mine, this can be done in two batches and mixed together by hand in a separate bowl.)

Once blended, toss it with cooked fettuccine noodles as you would a regular basil pesto. It will store in a refrigerator for weeks and almost indefinitely in a freezer.

To convert this into a hearty vegetable dip, just blend in a little sour cream, cream cheese, mayonnaise or yogurt to taste.

Broccoli growing in the garden