Apr 11 - MMMMM Fresh Rainbow Trout

There's nothing better than rainbow trout that came out of the water a short while ago. That was my lunch. Was going to go with my brother trout fishing today but since it was his first time out this season, it was special for him and he went by himself. He didn't forget about me though. My brother always cleans them well but it takes a final cleaning before they can be cooked. Can't stand to see fish eyes looking at me so I cut the heads off along with the fins by the gills. When I was younger, it didn't bother me (even though I could never scale fish because they looked at me) and now I even cut the tail off. That's a first for me and thank God there's enough stuff between the gills and the tail.

Found an excellent recipe on Internet but can't remember where I found it. Simple and delicious...Preheat oven to 400 degrees. They recommended olive oil but I like organic coconut oil and rubbed it over the skin. Put fish in baking pan (I used my glass baking dish).Then sprinkled dill weed and thyme, along with sea salt and good Watkins pepper. Did the inside too. The recipe called for onion to go into the  fish along with lemon slices. Didn't have any lemon slices but next time I'll run to the store to get some. Bake fish for 10 minutes. Turn them over. Add 2 T hot water and I added 1 T lemon juice. Again, I would have preferred freshly squeezed lemon juice but was hungry. Then bake the fish for 10 more minutes. That's all it took. The fish was perfectly cooked and tasted delicious even without the fresh lemon. Gave one of the fish to my brother-in-law and he enjoyed it too. Bobbi and Sparky both had a little too. Bobbi doesn't eat cod or shrimp so I was surprised when she ate the trout and it wasn't just a couple of bites either.

 The photo doesn't do the fish justice but doesn't it look nummy (just learned the word "nummy" is slang)? The fish is in a glass container. When I took the photo, I had put the baking dish on the burner but now that I look at the photo, I should have put it on something else. Still, I think the trout looks good in the photo and have to admit that it tasted better than looking at the photo.

Almost forgot about the coconut-white chocolate cheesecake I made. "Taste of Home" has an absolutely delicious recipe for the cheesecake. I changed it only a little by not putting coconut in the cheesecake itself and served all of the toasted coconut on the side. Another thing I learned was that when a cheesecake is done the top is supposed to have a dull finish and the top is set. I thought, what the heck does that mean. Thank goodness for Internet since I can't call my mom anymore! Dull finish and top set means that obviously the top is cooked and has a dull finish but the best part is the meaning of "set". Set means that the cheesecake in the center jiggles as much as the sides. I got a perfect score on the doneness on this cheesecake. Also, three of my coworkers don't like coconut but in this cheesecake, they ate it and loved it. One person said I should go into business making this cheesecake and another coworker said it was the best cheesecake he had ever eaten and he loves cheesecake. The key to this cheesecake is that the recipe makes the best cheesecake and its simple to make. I burnt out my sister's mixer because I didn't wait long enough for the cream cheese to soften so I ended up making it by hand. Worked out great. Here's the site I found the recipe http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/coconut-white-chocolate-cheesecake

Wore this cute pin instead of wearing earrings. When I started the blog, I was pretty sure I had about 1000 pairs of earrings but was off and probably only had 400 or so pairs.