Grilled Brook Trout

My Inner World is a site offering self discovery, self help, and motivations. On occasion, I get an email from MIW called “The Inner View”. It seems odd, but every time I receive these emails, it seems the topic of point is something that I needed at the time. Weird. Spooky.

This week the topic was “Do you need someone to talk to?”. The following are some of the salient points in the writing. See more HERE. Or follow on Twitter.

One of the most valuable of life’s gifts is someone to talk to. The heaviness of the world sometimes leaves us frightened, upset or feeling alone. We may have experienced embarrassment, anger, jealousy, or loss. Whatever it is, we feel pain and we want to bury our head in the sand, hiding ourselves from others. The dark thoughts and negative emotions can be scary and make us feel insecure. It’s at those times when having the right person to talk to can help us move forward with grace and honor.

It’s not easy to find a person we can easily share our concerns with and open our heart to. Many people are judgmental and form opinions which carry forward long after the situation is over. The type of person we should be lucky enough to find is someone who isn’t influenced by our own perceptions. The person already knows us and knows the beauty of our true nature. They aren’t excited by the drama of our story and listen with compassion. They remind us of what is really important.

Do you have that someone in your life? If not, it might be someone you haven’t recognized yet. It might not be a friend, it could be a family member or someone you don’t know really well. But you DO know that you are NEVER alone even if sometimes it feels that way.

My “I Need To Talk” Story from Long Ago:

I remember one occasion when I was thrown from my horse in the middle of the show ring, at a very prestigious horse show with a large audience. My horse reared (it felt like she went completely vertical and was ready to fall) and I fell off the side. I got back on and finished the ride but was MORTIFIED! How could I EVER face those people who I showed with, who trained my horse, who WERE IN THE AUDIENCE?!! It was such an embarrassment.

After the class, I left the show grounds and went back to my hotel crying hysterically. I called my parents and my father picked up the phone. I recounted the entire event and he simply said “Come on now, Jo. You’re bigger than that. Get back out there, smile and shake it off.” You know, those simple words made me feel so much better. It made me realize I WAS bigger than that. So what? I survived. I would ride AND show again. I ended up having a great time at the show. Everyone commended me on the way I rode that horse. I knew I WAS bigger than that.

GRILLED BROOK TROUT

This recipe is not for the squeamish.  In fact, I had a lot of trouble preparing it and wondered if the next step in my pesco-vegetarian diet would be to give up fish.  After I got over the difficult preparation and put the dinner on the table, I fell in complete LOVE with this meal. 

For those who wonder what a peso-vegetarian is, here’s the definition from WikiP:

Pescetarianism is the practice of a diet that includes seafood, and excludes other animals. In addition to fish and/or shellfish, a pescetarian diet typically includes all of vegetables, fruit, nuts, grains, beans, eggs and dairy. The Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the origin of the term "pescetarian" to 1993 and defines it to mean: "one whose diet includes fish but no meat".

Grilled Brook Trout

• 4 Fresh brook trout, heads and tails on, gutted
• 1/2 tsp each trout (total of 2 tsp) white truffle oil
• pinch of salt each trout (4 pinches)
• pinch of pepper each trout (4 pinches)
• 16 thin slices of lemon (you will use 4 per fish)
• 16 fresh basil leaves (use 4 per fish)
• olive oil (about 2 tsp total)

Preheat the grill to medium high heat and, going by the Canadian cooking rule for fish (10 min. per inch of fish), plan on grilling about 5 minutes per side.

Lay open the trout on a tray.  Sprinkle each fish with 1/2 tsp of truffle oil.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Lay out the lemon slices then top with the basil leaves.  Fold over the fish and use long tooth picks (that’s very hard to do – you have to pierce the skin and it’s tough), or use cooking twine and tie it around the fish to secure close.

Drizzle olive oil on the outside of each fish and put onto the grill as suggested above.

I made an easy coleslaw recipe to serve as the vegetable with the fish

• 12 oz bag coleslaw mix
• 6 oz plain Greek style yogurt
• 1/2 TBS Apple Cider vinegar
• 1/2 TBS white truffle oil
• 2 tsp honey
• 2 tsp honey mustard
• 5- 8 grinds of a pepper mill (black pepper to taste)
• 1/2 tsp salt (or salt to taste)

Put the coleslaw mix into a large bowl.  In a small bowl, mix remaining ingredients together and stir into coleslaw mix.  

As tough as it was working with whole fish, it sure did taste good.