Lemon, Dill & White Wine Salmon

Mike went food shopping this week and found fresh Alaskan salmon at Sam's Club.  He was just as excited as me!! Why were we so excited??

Most salmon these days, like farm raised and even wild Atlantic salmon, do not have the same beneficial nutrient composition as wild Alaskan salmon.  This is because farm raised salmon has a completely different diet and environment than wild salmon.  Farm raised salmon are fed feeds high in protein and fat.  Unfortunately, it is not the good fats, like omega 3 fats that fresh wild salmon has, but instead omega 6 fats.  These fats are called polyunsaturated fats and the american diet of processed foods and vegetable oils are already very high in omega 6 fatty acids.  Omega 6 fatty acids have also been linked to many of the diseases Americans face today.  Versus, Omega 3 fatty acids have shown to decrease inflammation, improve heart disease and more.

https://www-ncbi-nlm-nih-gov.ezproxy.rowan.edu/pmc/articles/PMC5776638/figure/f2-etm-0-0-5515/

This is why Mike and I were excited... we found wild Alaskan salmon that was not going to break our budget :)

Also, did you know I lived in Alaska for a summer?  I lived in Nome, the last stop in the iditarod- the dog sled race.  Anyone, watch/love Balto as a kid???  It was definitely one of my favorite movies ever!  Anyways, I went to Alaska to help with a nutrition initiative, called Summercise.  We taught nutrition and exercise classes, helped with the summer lunch program, and learned medical nutrition for diseases like diabetes (which is very prevalent there), heart disease, but also pregnancy, anemia, and more.  Here is a link to their website if you are interested.  https://www.nortonsoundhealth.org/services/hospital-services/camp/summercise/

We also went out to surrounding villages to teach nutrition. We camped at one village and I got to seine (wiki picture here) for fish.  Seining is a type of fishing that uses a big net that spans across a river to catch salmon.  This was my type of fishing.  No waiting for a fish to bite.  Honestly, this was the most efficient way to fish I have ever seen!  It was during the salmon run and there were salmon everywhere!!!!!  There were so many salmon that when you jumped in the rive (which was cold!!!) to wash off and you put your face in the water... you would get slapped in the face by fish haha.  After we caught them, we had to butcher them.  We used this ulu knife (wiki picture here) to cut the fish into fillets.  And then we cooked the fish over a fire.  It was delicious!!!  It was also a humbling experience.  To catch your food and take its life, makes you more appreciative and conscientious of the food you are eating.

Okay, enough on Alaska... except that it was an amazing experience and I learned so much.  I posted some pictures after the recipe :)

Lemon, Dill & White Wine Salmon

Ingredients
* makes 4- 5 servings

• 4 (5 ounce) salmon fillets.  This week at Sam's club they had fresh wild salmon, but we usually just buy these frozen wild Alaskan salmon fillets
• 1/3 cup white wine
• 2 tsp of olive oil 
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 lemon cut in half
• 2 tsp of dill
• salt and pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray with olive oil spray or olive oil.
3. Place salmon on sheet.  Then add all your ingredients... white wine, olive oil, garlic, dill, salt and pepper.  Squeeze lemon juice out of lemons and place halves of lemon in the pan on the fish.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes until fish is flaky.   

Pictures of Alaska

My phone (it was a flip phone back then haha) did not really work up there, so I do not have too many pictures.  It was a great trip and learning experience though!  I cannot wait to go back on an Alaskan cruise one day... Who wants to go with me?!?!