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

A light chickpea snack / meal (cheap and nutritious)

So, these last couple of years I've started making meals from scratch, to improve the health, but also to save significant amounts of money.

I'm now on a flexitarian diet, and I don't eat much red meat anymore, and rarely white meat such as chicken. I eat quite a bit of fish, tuna and salmon. I also consume eggs and dairy products.

I go to the local immigrant stores and buy packs of veggie products, such as chickpeas. 1 KG costs 35 kroner, 4.5 dollars, 3.75 euros, and divided up, gives significant protein to 10-15 veggie meals.

Today I took one of those chickpea packs (ca 200 grams), and fried it in a pan, alongside some chopped garlic (6 gloves) and a handful of olives:



I used Canola oil to fry it in, and added some salt and black peppers to spice things up.

I've been very restrictive on the spices in my food, but this week I shelled out some cash on a 20-gram pack of black pepper, and will start to use pepper a bit more in the cooking. Spices add flavour, but also mask other flavours, so I guess experimenting with different ingredients is easier with less flavour complexity.

Anyway, I'm not sure whether to call this a snack or a meal, but a light meal should be a fitting categorization. And very nutritious and healthy.

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [22 Apr 15:05 Europe/Oslo]

Winner, winner - not - chicken dinner

I've been focusing on food, exercise and getting healthier the last couple of years, and a part of that has been going slightly flexitarian in what I eat.

So far I've eaten chicken and farmed salmon, but lately eating this kind of food has left me with a little bit of distaste, distaste for how these animals are farmed up and then slaughtered after a rather petty life.

So it fits well that I some months ago bought some frozen hens on the local megamarket, these are hens that have lived a productive life, pushing out eggs on a regular basis.

I'd say eggs and garlic are two staple foods in my diet these days, and I do feel more comfortable with a mixed flexitarian diet rather than going full vegetarian, because I feel that it's easier to eat well, healthy and varied by going a bit mixed.

So, these hens cluck around their lives, put out eggs and are at some point slaughtered. And then that meat (and everything else) can be put to good use.

A picture of a couple of hens that have simmered just below boiling for some hours:



Later I'll pluck the meat off these, and freeze that, and then take everything that remains and let that simmer for at least 4 hours, let it boil down and then run it through a siv and freeze that as well.

From what I understand, there are a lot of nutrients in what remains, and it feels right to be able to make use of everything. It's a bit of a contrast to what most people do here in Norway, which is buy minced minced chicken meat, filets and so on. That's fine I guess, but with my approach, I make good use of an animal that hasn't just been brought up and fed to then be slaughtered.

I can't tell how these hens have been treated though, I guess that's on of my next goals in ethical eating - making sure that the animals I eat have been treated well enough.

As for chicken raised just for slaughter and fish raised in pens just for slaughter - I think the treatment they often get is questionable, and as for fish raised in pens, the effects on their surrounding environment can't be all positive, as has been seen on thick layers of sediment below then pens, as well as fish escaping from the pens and mixing with the local fish. I think I'll be buying more fish that has been roaming freely and then caught as well.

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [02 Nov 00:58 Europe/Oslo]

Fusilli, mushroom (cremini), garlic

So, in my quest to find cheap and nutritious food, I did some research and created a new dish today. It consists of Fusilli durum wheat pasta, brown italian mushroom aka. cremini/champignon (or in Norwegian, sjampinjong) and garlic.

Now, from what I've gathered on the net, corn products contain a lot of protein, but not a lot of the amino acid Lysein. And there's a lot of Lysein in said mushroom.

I'd say that garlic is becoming a staple food in my kitchen, as it it spicy and strong raw or sweeter but still tasty when cooked. I can add it to just about any dish and it works.

So, what I do is peel the garlic, divide it up in reasonably sized pieces for faster cooking and fry that and the mushroom first, in olive oil. Now when I say fry, I mean having it on an electrical stove on a 2 of 6 setting until the garlic is easily dividable and soft.

I think food is better if you spend some more time on it, and using a relatively low heat setting and starting the cooking an hour or two before eating is a good thing.

So, after the garlic and mushrooms have been fried, I pour them over into a bowl, and then boil the Fusilli until its done. Then I pour the vegetables back into the pot, let it heat a bit and pour it back into the bowl.

So, half a garlic, about 100 grams of mushroom and 120 grams of Fusilli makes this dish, and I think it tastes nice.



[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [08 Aug 14:59 Europe/Oslo]

All that you can eat

http://images.foodproof.com/bacon-and-cheese-stuffed-pizza-b...

(Thanks Eirik)

Update...

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

(thanks Hoffa)

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [20 Feb 16:27 Europe/Oslo]

Kebab nation

After moving to Oslo, there's been a lot of Kebab eating, as Kebabs are tasty and fairly cheap. There are 2-3 Kebab shops right nearby (the part of town we live in is ethnically diverse), and some days it is just easier to go to one of those places and buy a dinner.

I think it is a fairly balanced meal as well, with meat, vegetables, bread and some other goodies.

My favorite is the Kebab roll, listed here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kebabs#Scandinavia

It's also a dish many people opt for when coming back from parties, but you'd already know that by reading this:

"In the UK kebabs are most popularly eaten after a night out and many kebab shops will do their main business in the hours around closing time for local pubs and clubs. The same applies for The Netherlands, Australia and Scandinavia."

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebab

There's a delightful mix of culture here in Grønland, in fact, we have a shopping mall located in the same building where we're living and there you have different stores - for example a stored called Bollywood.no:

  http://www.bollywood.no/

where you can get different kinds of movies made in Bollywood. I saw some movies like that when I was staying in India, but those were on TV and not that good (and in a language I didn't understand), surely there are better movies available on DVD now. Note to self: try out some of those movies. :)

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [11 Oct 22:37 Europe/Oslo]

Something fishy

Today I'll be going to the grocery store, to find some good fish and veggies. I'm thinking some salmon could be good, but we'll see what they have available.

Yesterday evening was another chicken-dinner, with bamboo, wok-mix (again), slices of apple and banana. Quite tasty.. some fruit livens up the taste a bit, and the chili-sauce mix on the chicken made it close to perfect.

So, it will probably be salmon, pasta screws and some veggies - look forward to that.

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [17 Feb 14:58 Europe/Oslo]

Yummy, yummy, yummy in my tummy

Just finished a great meal: chicken, wok-mix, bamboo and potatoes. I'm going to try to eat more green stuff, lately it has just been a lot of chicken, tuna, pasta and stuff like that.

Had a big plate of food, but got .. pleasantly full and I think the whole meal was less than 500 calories to boot. Sure the green stuff is relatively expensive here in Norway, and it takes time to prepare. That's a good investment, my guess is that I'll start experiencing more energy and general happiness by "eating green."

So, the food plan is: start the day with a (mixed by blender) choco-egg-shake: 3 eggs, just over half a pint of milk, 1 banana, and two spoons of chocolate milk mix). Then eat something for lunch that has enough proteins and the same for the rest of the day.

Hmm, I should really find some good protein sources to get good results from the exercise. Tuna and chicken is getting a bit boring, so are beans. Maybe buy one bulk package of protein-mix and eat "regular" meals.

The thing is that you have to eat well, and get enough proteins to get maximum results from exercise - my guess is that I need around 100 grams of proteins each day. And with 4 meals a day each meal has to have at least 25 grams of protein.

Onwards to find some tasty sources of protein..

[Later..] Hm, fish seems to be a good one. Will have to investigate.

[Permalink] [By morphex] [Food (Atom feed)] [15 Feb 22:24 Europe/Oslo]