For those of you who do not know, my oldest is 26 this month. He moved home a little over a year ago and was laid off from his auditing position at a CPA firm in April of this year. He has a lot of free time on his hands these days, or so it seems. Consequently, he has been heading up north with my sister’s significant other to fish. For about a month, they were either on Lake Ontario or the Salmon River twice a week. The result is I have no room in my freezer at the moment. It is full of salmon.
One thing that my son wanted to try was smoking the salmon. I have a charcoal grill. He bought some chips of hickory – first try, he used cherry from a friend – and got to work on smoking some of the fish. This does not help in the freezer area as it means that there is now smoked salmon in the freezer also. I did try a smoked salmon dip that my mom sent me and he loved it. He ate it on toast tips for quite some time. The recipe is below.
Smoked Salmon Dip
8 ounces of cream cheese
6-8 ounces of smoked salmon
4 green onions, chopped with some of the green
2 tablespoons capers (I didn’t have any on hand so added a pinch of salt)
½ cup mayonnaise or sour cream (more or less, to taste) – Always the rebel, I used Chobani Vanilla Greek Yogurt.
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
Juice of a lemon
Bring Cream Cheese to room temperature. Remove skin from salmon and flake with a fork. Mix all ingredients except lemon juice in a blender, food processor or with a fork if you want it lumpy. If you mix with a fork, chop the onion fine and also chop the capers. After it is well mixed, add lemon juice to taste. The lemon juice will cut the heavy taste of the salmon and cream cheese.
Notes: From my mom: I use Neufchatel cheese (I did too) but if you want, I am sure that fat free cream cheese might work as well. I have used regular minced onion but the flavor isn’t as good. I use Miracle Whip Free instead of mayo (as I said, I used Greek yogurt).
I serve with mini toasts or if you have some white bread, toast your own. It is very good with Champagne.
Nicki's Nook 
YUM! I love salmon! Definitely going to try the dip.
Winks & Smiles,
Wifey
This sounds wonderful, Nicki. Not only can I not imagine freshly caught fish, but freshly smoked as well! Divine.