Stuffed sole and stuffing your soul

Shrimp Stuffed Sole

Stuffed sole can be a healthy, satisfying treat for your taste buds that provides vital nutrients to your body that help combat stress and fight inflammation. While you feed your body, do not neglect your mind and spirit.

Your mind and spirit need nourishment and exercise as well. The nourishment for your mind includes learning new things as well as entertainment. For your spirit, it means fulfilling higher needs through religion or spirituality. The exercise for each requires challenges. The mind enjoys puzzles and debate. The spirit, or soul, needs challenges to your moral values. But, like you need to eat smart and exercise wisely for physical health, the same element of moderation is necessary for the mind and spirit.

First let’s feed the body with a meal featuring stuffed sole. Sole can be relatively inexpensive, especially when compared to salmon or tuna. It’s a white fish, so it is not quite as rich in DHEA as salmon. However, it is a better choice than catfish.

Shrimp Stuffed Sole

Ingredients (per serving):

Stuffing:

Shrimp, raw and peeled – 4 oz.
Almonds – 1 oz.
Green onion, chopped – 1
Garlic, minced – 1 tspn
Butter, softened – 1tbsp
Coconut oil, melted – 1 tspn
Turmeric – dash
Dill – pinch

Outside:

Sole, filets – 2, approx. 6 oz (3 oz each)
Ancho, chipotle, and/or paprika powder – garnish to taste
Nutritional quick facts: Approx 8g carbohydrates (3.5g from fiber) , 55g protein, 890mg Omega-3 per serving. Amounts may vary.

Shrimp Stuffing

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
If the shrimp are not already peeled, peel them. Place shrimp in a food processor and chop them into a pink mush. Place the shrimp into a small bowl and set aside. Place raw, unsalted almonds into the food processor and chop until they have a rough appearance. You don’t want them chopped too fine. Add the almonds, chopped green onion, softened butter, garlic, and spices to the shrimp. Fold the ingredients until the spices appear well blended and butter and almonds seem evenly dispersed. Add the melted coconut oil. Fold again until well dispersed.

Place one sole filet in a glass baking tray, on top of  the olive oil. Place the second filet with one end overlapping and the other extending at approximately a 30 degree angle from the first filet. Spoon the filling onto the bottom filet, making sure the filling also pins the overlapping edge of the second. Shape the filling so it doesn’t extend past the edges of the bottom filet. Wrap the second filet around the filling, tucking the free end inside once the stuffing is encircled.  Garnish with the pepper powder of choice. The example depicted used a equal ratio of ancho and chipotle powders.

Stuffing the Sole

Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes or until fish has a flaky appearance.

Healthy Benefits

The sole and the shrimp provide your body with DHEA, an Omega-3 fatty acid. Your body uses Omega-3s to form high-density lipo-protein (HDL) cholesterol. The gray matter in your brain is composed of those HDL cholesterols. A diet sufficient in DHEA can promote brain health and the regeneration of that gray matter. The HDLs your body generates also combat plaque created from low-density lipo-proteins merging with free radicals and rogue glutenoids, protien strains from grain gluten. That plaque clogs arteries. It also becomes white matter in the brain that attaches itself, at first, at endorphin and exorphin receptors in the brain. Studies indicate that the plaque build-up in the brain, called white matter, contributes to (and may be partially responsible for causing) ADHD, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.

If you pair this dish with legumes or leafy greens high in anti-oxidants such as vitamin A, your body is better equipped to fight inflammation and plaque. The vitamin D in both the fish and the vegetables also benefit the skin, brain, and joints by preventing unnecessary inflammation.

Stuffing Your Soul

Stress can be good or bad. Good stress motivates us, serving as exercise necessary to increase strength and resolve. The more fit we are thanks to good stress, the better we handle bad stress.

As previously stated, you need to exercise your mind, learning something new each day. Learning is part of the equation. You need to practice and challenge that learning. Things like puzzles or playing a new song on an instrument accomplish this. So can healthy debate. Healthy debate also serves a purpose in creating a forum to not only impart our wisdom, but learn from the experiences and knowledge of others.

But debate means we sometimes move outside of our comfort zone. It means we may also face challenges to our moral values. We face ideas and mores that may offend us. It is fine to be offended. Being offended exercises our spirits, or souls. It allows us to be more tolerant.

The word “tolerance” gets misused far too often these days. What people fail to realize is that tolerance requires us to be offended. In fact, you cannot tolerate something that doesn’t offend or annoy you. Tolerance is not acceptance. Tolerance means you put-up with another person’s offensive opinions or moral code. That does not mean you have to agree. It doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it. It doesn’t mean you have to support it. In fact, you shouldn’t.

Some believe that rock and roll is immoral music. Others believe that of rap. If rap offends you, but you are tolerant, it means you won’t listen to it in your home or car. However, it does not give you permission to ban it in your neighbor’s house. Tolerance also means you don’t have to endure your neighbor blasting rap so loud you cannot hear your rock and roll, either. If it is in his own home, tolerance means leaving it alone as long as it doesn’t infringe upon your right to listen to your choice in music in yours. You can apply this to a variety of other issues.

Stuff your soul by exercising tolerance but not capitulating your morals or values.

This article is dedicated to Glenn Beck.