Recipe – Chickpea Burgers

It’s weird for me to post a recipe, but since my vegetarianism was a result of my reason-based outlook, I think it fits in here. If people like the idea of posting recipes I’ll do it more often!

Since I stopped eating meat I’ve been looking for an alternative to burgers that’s not disgusting, and it’s hard to find. I can’t stand the taste of soy, and those burgers that try to taste like meat are usually dry and weird-tasting. The other night I went to a BBQ and the hostess kindly made me a chickpea burger that I absolutely loved, mainly because it wasn’t trying to taste like meat.

Here‘s the recipe:

2 tsp vegetable oil
3 green onions (including tops) chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp each dried oregano and chili powder
1 cup diced sweet red or green pepper and/or ½ cup chopped pickled hot peppers
Half tomato, chopped
1 can (19 oz) chick-peas drained and rinsed
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tbsp cilantro or parsley, chopped

1. In nonstick skillet, heat 1 tsp of oil over medium heat and cook onions, garlic, oregano and chili powder, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add red pepper and tomato. Cook, stirring for about 3 minutes or until pepper is tender and liquid is evaporated.
2. In food processor, mix pepper mixture with chick-peas; transfer to bowl. Stir in bread crumbs, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste until well combined. Pressing firmly, shape into 4 burgers.
3. In nonstick skillet, heat remaining oil over medium heat and cook burgers for 4 minutes on each side or until heated through.

Serves 4

You can make this ahead through to step 2 and refrigerate for up to 3 days or freeze for up to 1 month.

The friend that made them for me used extra bread crumbs because the patties weren’t staying together well. She also used both green peppers and pickled ones. She cooked them on the BBQ but it was a bit of a challenge, so it’s probably best to do it in a skillet. You just eat it on a bun with whatever condiments you would normally put on a burger.

On the website where she got the recipe it says you could also omit the breadcrumbs and cook them in a frying pan to use as filling for tacos.

Enjoy!

Sociological Images (My New Favourite Blog)

I recently discovered this awesome blog, and since I’m really bad at describing things I’ll just copy and paste their description:

Sociological Images: Seeing is Believing is designed to encourage all kinds of people to exercise and develop their sociological imagination by presenting brief sociological discussions of compelling and timely imagery that spans the breadth of sociological inquiry.

I’m in love with Sociological Images, and it has made me think about the subtext when faced with certain images. Here are a few posts that I’ve enjoyed since I’ve started following this blog:

The Difference Between Male and Female Vegetarians: Self-Sufficiency!

1920 Proposal to Ban Female Drivers

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and the Social Control of Mothers (this one interested me because there has recently been a bit of debate going on in the Winnipeg Free Press letters to the editor about sterilizing FAS mothers)

Guest Post: An Indigenous Olympics?

I’ve even been sending them things…here’s one I sent in that they posted:

Gender Non-Conformity is a Drag
What struck me as odd was that the comments thread on that post quickly turned to speculations that Shiloh might be transgendered. As if a biological girl would only choose to wear girl’s clothes.

Transgendered or not, Shiloh’s lucky to have parents that are open-minded enough to let her wear what she wants, in spite of the pressures of being in the spotlight.

…

I sent them another link maybe an hour ago and haven’t heard back yet as to whether it will be posted, but I’m going to copy and paste my email into another post, as I’m curious to hear your opinions on the topic.

I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I do!

Symphony of Science – Jane Goodall

If you haven’t heard of the Symphony of Science you must must must click here now!

John Boswell, the head musician and producer behind Symphony of Science, has created (so far) 4 songs with accompanying videos that put the words of brilliant scientists like Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking to music…with the magic of auto-tune.

I love these creations so much that I even ordered the first song, A Glorious Dawn, on vinyl (you can get them from Third Man Records, they’re only $5, and the vinyl is etched to replicate the gold record on Voyager).

Symphony of Science just unveiled its most recent creation, “The Unbroken Thread”, featuring David Attenborough, Carl Sagan, and Jane Goodall. And it’s beautiful. This one is about biology, evolution, and the complexity and diversity of life on Earth.

I particularly want to point out the part featuring Jane Goodall, and it sums up the main reason why I decided to become a vegetarian (it’s been a week today!):

There isn’t a sharp line dividing humans
from the rest of the animal kingdom
It’s a very wuzzie line

It’s a very wuzzie line,
and it’s getting wuzzier
All the time

We find animals doing things that we,
In our arrogance,
Used to think was “just human”

I hope you enjoy these songs as much as I do.

Obligatory New Year’s Post

Welcome to 2010!

It’s already January 2nd, so I’m a little late with my New Year’s post, but better late than never!

I’ve never been the type for making new year’s resolutions, and when I have I usually forget what they were by January 3rd, so I don’t know why I bother. But there’s been something I’ve been meaning to do, and I’ve been waffling on it for the past 3 or 4 months, so I decided to jump right in and to make it my new year’s resolution.

I’m quitting meat. I love it, but I believe it’s unethical to kill animals for my own enjoyment, so I’m not going to eat it anymore. When I was a Christian I had the whole mentality that God put animals on earth to serve humans, so I had no qualms about eating meat.

My goal in life now is to determine my ethics and values based on reason and evidence, so since I can no longer justify eating meat, it’s about time to stop.

If you have any yummy veg recipes, send them my way!

I don’t want this post to be all about me, so here are some New Year’s posts I enjoyed reading:

Steven Novella looks at some of the biggest issues in skepticism over the last decade.

Skeptic North reflects on 2009 and their first few months of skeptical blogging.

Phil Plait gives us the skinny on how we define a decade, and why 2010 really is the beginning of the next decade.

Amanda at Opinions of a Wolf talks about why New Year’s is her favourite holiday, and I have to agree!

Richard Wiseman arranges what summarized 2009 for men and women in the form of word clouds.