Some (many?) weeks when you’re putting together the grocery list you struggle for inspiration. My family could probably tell you the precise number of weeks in the past few years we’ve defaulted to the ground beef tacos-pasta-burgers line-up. That’s not a bad thing – I make great ground beef tacos and pasta and burgers, each of which I can quickly adapt for myself to keep it keto, so to speak. But when the groans from my family became audible on announcing the week’s menu, I knew it was time to think outside of my very tiny box for ideas.

According to the Disney website, WDW has 385 restaurants. Some of those are bars with limited or no food, some are “experiences” rather than restaurants, and some are (mostly) useless (see, e.g., Beaches & Cream Soda Shop – short of some miracle of science, the Kitchen Sink will never be keto-friendly).

That leaves us with hundreds of restaurants with thousands of menu items. But where to start…

How about a trip around the world? No, not for drinking around the world, although I have done that – for eating around the world! We’re going to try to go 11 for 11. And like any sane person, when we leave Mexico, we head to Norway.

Ingredients:

4 8oz salmon fillets

1 stick salted butter

1 tsp Smoked paprika

Salt and pepper

1 lemon

1 lime

Canola oil

Instructions:

I’m going to go lean on the instructions since the point here is to find sources of inspiration for your meals, not layout precise instructions for cooking.

My 3 keys to grilling salmon are: 1) Start with very hot (clean) grill grates – after I’ve scraped any residue off the grates, I crank the burners on my gas grill up to high. 2) Oil the fish, not the grill – I rub both sides of the salmon with plenty of canola oil and then salt and pepper it. 3) Grill skin side down first for 5 minutes, flipping once and allowing the meat side to cook for another 5 minutes.

That’s it – after 5 minutes per side, the salmon is at about 125 degrees Fahrenheit, which is when I like to pull it off and let it rest uncovered for about 5 minutes, during which time it will come up to at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t cook salmon often, use a fish thermometer to check your temps.

The Akershus menu reads, “Served with a Ragoût of White Beans, Garlic Crostini, and a Citrus-smoked Salmon Butter.” The white bean ragoût (stewed beans, so to speak) and crustini aren’t necessarily keto-friendly, but the butter? Yes!

For the butter, I zested the lemon and the lime to get 1 teaspoon of zest from each and mixed that into a stick of butter that had been softening on the counter. I then mixed the smoked paprika into the butter.

I made the white bean ragout and crostini for my family by warming up canned cannellini beans in a skillet with halved cherry tomatoes and chopped spinach and toasting some slices of Italian bread (with butter…or better, THE butter).

While the salmon is still hot, plate it with the skin on (along with whatever sides you decide to go with) and add a healthy scoop of the butter directly to the top of the salmon.

The butter absolutely makes the salmon. NGL: this was the best salmon I have ever had!

KTK Pro Tip: Double the butter recipe and, like Frank’s Red Hot, put that **** on everything.

This ain’t Wandering Oaken’s lutefisk, but you will have good feelings. Keep Ketoing The Kingdom, Kids!