Morphex's blogologue (Life, technology, music, politics, business, mental health and more)

A day in the life of..

So, life has been progressing, in a positive direction. I've blogged about being ill and different troubles, but now it looks like things have stabilized and I'm planning more for the future.

I've been reflecting the last couple of days, and although I've learned a lot in life, I also feel short-changed on the positive experiences, having lived with a diagnosis for psychosis and an anxiety disorder since 2010, but having suffered for many years before that.

So I decided some time ago that I should work to put more things into my positive experiences bag, and that also means taking care of my body (eating well, exercising) as well as doing things that feel good.

For some years now I've been changing my diet, starting with eating more fruits and vegetables. It has taken a couple of years of change and experimenting, and now I'm at a place where I enjoy eating a bowl of cooked kidney beans and white rice, along with about half a fried garlic.

Now, since I became acutely ill in 2009, I tried to keep things together and worked a bit in my own company, Nidelven IT. But things slowly dwindeled down there, and in 2013 I reached the end of the line with regard to money, and had to go ~100% unemployed. I stretched out the money and earned a lot less than before I got sick, but it was the end of the line.

Now though, after being unemployed for a while and also being on sick leave from that, I'm on the minimum support plan from the state, which doesn't give me a lot of money to work with, and I have to find ways of saving money and being frugal. I'm not sure, but I think if I had gone 100% sick from the day I became ill, I would have been in a better position now economically, so I do feel short-changed by the state for trying to make the best of things.

Anyway, as I've been changing my eating habits and getting better from my illness, I feel that eating healthy is nice, and I feel it as well, that the mood is more stable and see that my body is shedding some weight.

I've been following Paul McCartney on Twitter, and he's an advocate for Meat Free Monday, which has a website with vegetarian food.

Now I'm not going to jump into it and go fully vegan, but I think that it is generally a good idea, because less animals will be bred and kept for food, which is good for animal welfare, and more food will be available as it takes a lot of feed to generate 1 KG of meat for example.

So I experimented a bit, and found that about 200 grams of cooked kidney beans and 150 grams of cooked white rice as well as some fried garlic, was a good combination. What I like about this meal in particular is that it leaves me full, but not sluggish. I feel good after eating a meal like that.

Here are some soaked, but uncooked kidney beans:



I cook them for about an hour, and the water is boiling, to make sure that a toxin that can make you unwell is destroyed by cooking at high temperature.

After boiling, I take off the lid and continue at a low temperature, until most of the water has vaporized. I bag these kidney beans about 200 grams in each bag and put them in the freezer, and I like the idea that as much nutrients as possible go along with it (and aren't washed out in the cooking water), and it's easier to fill the bags with a little bit of water each that way.

I'm not a nutritional expert, but from what I gather, the protein combination from the beans and the rice combine well, to make a complete essential protein source. Which is important, as I don't want the strength exercise to go to waste and need protein. And it makes it a real alternative to for example meat.

I've got a whole salmon thawing in the refrigerator as well, and I'll be posting some pics and the recipe for that later today, it's my own recipe and I think it works quite well. :)

[Edit: Later the same day..] The salmon has thawed enough that I could put it in the pan in pieces:



I bought some salmon for about 5 $ per kilo a while ago, which is cheap, and it's been lying around in the freezer. I'm not that good at creating filets yet, so I'll just let them simmer long enough that I can pluck all the edible parts off. I put a dash of oil in the bottom of the pan, and I'm hoping there will be some run-off as well which I can put in the soup.

Now this is farmed salmon, salmon that has been raised in a small pen out in the sea. As far as animal ethics go, the fish does have some intelligence and feelings, so I'm not sure how much of a life it is swimming around in a small enclosure and being fed pellets. They can't tell us.

I like fishing, but I think that's fairly morally balanced as the fish I catch is going after my lure. If that lure had been a real fish, a big fish would've tried to eat a much smaller fish, but instead it ends up being my dinner. Which is ironic, but fair. I also expedite the fish I catch as soon as I can, with a quick stab and twist in the skull to put an end to the suffering. The way fish eat each other is fairly gruesome if you think about it, they swallow something alive and then it suffocates in their stomach.

[Edit: Even later in the day..] Alright. So I started making the soup itself, first I started off with a litre of almost skimmed milk and two litres of water:



And after that, I added a dash of olive oil as well as some corn starch (for thickness), and fish bouillon:



Two whole garlic, chopped in pieces:



I find it useful to keep all pieces fairly small, so that they take less time to cook.

Now this time I decided to go for some pre-cut vegetables, and over time I've grown fond of having frozen vegetables in the freezer. It doesn't spoil, and cooking time doesn't matter much, they thaw fairly quick:



A nice mix of potatoes, carrot, celery and I think the last component was leek.

The salmon was cooked at low heat in some oil, and ended up in a tower on a plate, plucked once. Now I could see some fish bones left, so I'm going to pluck it another time when it goes into the caserole.



The whole fish was 1099 grams, and I guess after plucking it, removing bones, most of the head etc. I was left with 900-950 grams of fish and skin, and that ended up being around half of what a similar weight in raw form would cost in the store.

My oh my. I almost forgot an ingredient that makes a big difference, green olives with red peppers!



I think these make a big difference for the taste, also if they simmer in a warm soup for maybe an hour they become quite easy to chew. This is about 200 grams of that stuff.

So to sum up the ingredients:

• 1 litre of almost skimmed milk
• 2 litres of water
• 4 cubes of fish bullion
• Appropriate amount of corn starch
• A dash of olive oil
• 0.8 - 1 KG salmon
• 2 whole garlic
• 800 grams vegetable mix
• 200 grams red pepper stuffed olives

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Health (Atom feed)] [19 Jul 06:52 Europe/Oslo]