Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Food, Drink and Cooking What are you making/having for dinner tonight?

I don't have anyone else to cook for right now so I've started making homemade dogfood. I start with a cup of 'Par Boiled Rice' which is dirt cheap and has 80% of the nutrients as brown rice,
add a hamburger, or a fish fillet, or a bag of giblets from a chicken. If I have a few bones leftover I'll boil them with the rice but remove before serving. when the rice and meat are cooked, I add a handful of rolled oats, a raw egg, a can of mixed vegetables blended into a puree, and a good dollop of cottage cheese, sour cream or plain yogurt. Other ingredients would be brewers yeast, peanut butter, bone meal, fish oil or a vitamin supplement.
This makes a pretty hefty pot of gourmet dogfood which I store in a tupperware in the fridge. Twice a day he gets a cup or so of this with an equal amount of commercial kibbles just to cover any nutrients I might miss. Roscoe's bowl gets licked clear across the kitchen!

I spent a couple of weeks working at a dog kennel, many years ago. We fed everybody rice and old ground meat from the little market down the street. That was it. Just boiled the rice for a while and then stirred in the meat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes or so.

There was a nice display of fancy dog food cans by the front counter. If the customer paid extra, we would add in one of those. But hardly anybody did. So rice and (mostly) beef it was. Your mix sounds much better!

Thanks, Ken. I hope you're referring to the salmon I buy.
The package says wild caught but doesn't say where it's from other than US. I certainly hope it's from Alaska. I've heard they have the best standards up there. I saw a whole program about it once about how they (Alaska fishermen) tried to do all kinds of dirty nasty things, got caught and in the end figured out it was actually cheaper to harvest them cleaner. (duh).

Scout, this latest we've been getting is Silverbrite and is packaged by Kroger the supermarket.
We load up on it when it goes on sale. Last week it was $7.50 per lb and we got several packages. I think normally it's around $10 per lb.
I've actually asked the Kroger people how they can sell it so cheap. Wild caught shrimp is very cheap too....routinely $4.99 per lb.
They say they think it's because it's such a large supermarket. They don't really know though.
It's awfully good.

Healthy Living (the local health food supermarket - known on the street as Crunchy Living because of its granola-eating clientele...and Wealthy Living because of it pricing) has wild-caught seafood that has, on the package, the name of the fishing boat it came from. Kinda cool.

Price is somewhere between what Scout pays and what Olyve pays.

I buy my wild-caught fish from Henry's market-our local organic food grocery store chain. We buy all of our poultry, pork and beef there, too. All free range, and no hormones-either injected or through feed.I just love that store, and Trader Joe's. I try to buy all of my vegetables from the local growers, as long as they are organic. The Von's market my son works at has them.

During Lent, I cook one meatless meal a week for the family. During the rest of the year, my daughter and I continue that. It's somewhat hard to do on a renal-diabetic diet, when I need 3-5 ozs of protein per meal, and beans are not usally allowed, but with phosphorous binders, I can have a limited amount.

I was referring to your salmon olyve. And speaking of salmon, King or Chinook (same thing—just the native name) salmon are indeed the best but Silvers (Coho) are good too, as is Sockeye. I’ve gone salmon fishing several times in Oregon but the best catching for me was done in the Queen Charlotte Islands of Canada. It’s a very close neighbor to Alaska, near Juneau, and they have plentiful halibut and salmon in that area. Oregon and Washington still have decent supplies of salmon and halibut but not to the extent of Canada and Alaska. In fact the Columbia River that separates Oregon and Washington was probably the best salmon river of all time but the many dams constructed on the river in the last 60 years unfortunately put an end to that.

Sport catching a Chinook on a line is very different than catching a Coho. When you hook a Chinook (King) it will dive straight down. You play it for awhile and when ol Salmo gets near the boat it will dive again—very deep. This repetition diving plays out for about five or six times and then you think it’s finally time to bring the poor bastard in. But it’s not to be and Chinook sucks in its entire last reserves of energy and does one more deep dive before it’s finally too exhausted, raises the white flag, and then you can slowly reel it in. Coho (Silvers) on the other hand go flying in the air when they are hooked, sometimes almost sailing over the boat, and they do that dance for awhile before you can finally reel them in. Don’t go feeling too sorry for the fish now.

There are the other salmons, Sockeye is very good but you also have Pink and Chum which IMO are only ok—a much softer and not as flavorful fish. But the best is Chinook cooked over coals brushed with a little olive oil, a smidgen of salt and pepper grilled outdoors on the BBQ to perfection. While grilling the good for you fat turns to a glaze on the fish and that glazy smoky flavor makes it simply one of the best fish you can ever eat. Melt in your mouth good. Damn---I’m out a here and on to the mighty Pacific!!! Hope the Orcas leave me alone.

Damn, Ken that sorta makes me wanna go fishing. It'd be for the local Speckled Perch (crappies) though cuz we aint got no Salmon around here 'cept storebought.

I didn't cook tonight, but I made some coleslaw and packed it away to mellow and then pickled 3 dozen Quail Eggs for a future appetizer course.

The pickling my grandma used to do was slicing cucumbers and onion putting them in cold saltwater with dill. She would make them in the morning and let them soak in the refrigerator all day. Then we would have them for dinner-Yum!

After a long weekend out of town, I'm just now getting back here. I thoroughly enjoyed the read, Ken. Since I've been to that area now, I can honestly believe how pristine the fishing would be.
Taking Amtrak down the coast along the Columbia was awesome.

That said...."Don't go feeling too sorry for the fish now"
Well....

This is what I buy that is so fantastic...

The sockeye I've been buying is very good too but this one makes it really a pleasure.

I'll look for King or Chinook but I can't imagine improving on that.
I swear when I cook that up I feel like a gourmet cook for real.

For some reason, rice makes Sammy sneeze - probably 'cuz he inhales his food like I've starved him for a few days...

(...and he gets 2-3 meals a day. I just told him "no" because he wants to eat again - he just had brunch for Pete's sake! Daddy is gay )