No waste: Salmon

A few weeks ago a friend gave us 2 freshly caught salmon. They were beautiful and fresh with perfectly clear eyes. I was so thankful as we love salmon and lately its been out of our budget. We will not buy farmed. Come on you don't buy farmed fish do you? I have family in Alaska, I was born in Alaska (though I left young), eating farmed fish is not an option for me! Look it up, its gross.

Back on topic. We gave one of them to another friend and Joe tackled the job of filleting this monster fish. I wish I had taken photos of the process but sadly I did not. He did a pretty decent job and we will get many meals from this. As I watched him cut the fish I saw the pile of bones and fins and parts of things growing. I saw so much meat that we were not going to be using and it felt so wasteful to me. As I thought about this I decided I was not going to waste any of this fish! Determined I was, yes the woman who will not eat meat off a bone. It grosses me out, don't know why. Started with my first pregnancy and never went away. I get nauseous when I see oh I am not even going to go there. So we called up the friend we gave the other fish too and asked if I could have his bones and head. Yes I said it the head, ewwww a fish head. I was determined and the next day said friend brought me a bag of fish parts and pieces. His fish was in a bit worse state than ours. We had a good laugh over it. So into the pot went all the pieces, a bit of vegis, and some salt. I cooked it for a bit less than an hour and then strained it. When the meat had cooled I picked off as much as I could to go into some soup. I was able to freeze 6 quarts of fish stock with the bones of those two fish. Never having made fish stock before I don't know how it will taste but I did it! I will even do it again next time. Though next time I know the process and Joe will be doing more of the washing and rinsing and chopping that I had to do before it went into the pot. lol Fish heads, ewww. The chickens enjoyed some of what was left after I was done with it as well.