SpokEasy

Food

Dang It

BACK ISSUES, bicycling, Food /

Dang It! My latest ride-food experiment! Dang it, I was actually rather disappointed in Dang bars. I found a coconut one in the salvage store day before yesterday; and got it to try as on-bike food. Eating the same old thing Sunday after Sunday gets a bit wearisome; and I can’t know what will be a great taste sensation if I don’t try it. The Dang bar that I found was coconut; and I tried it during my long ride yesterday. Taste-wise, it was OK; but to me it seemed a bit too dry and crumbly. And to be honest, the Dang bar is smaller than I like for ride-food bars. So dang it, I don’t have a new ride food, after all! Weather Our weather is heating up; and “the muggies” are setting in, too. All too soon hurricane season will begin; and I hope no storm comes along and keeps me from riding for several weeks. I’m working towards my Super Commuter badge; and to get it I must ride to work 200 times this year. So far, I’m 26% there; so I have about 150 days of riding to work to go! Before I worry too much about hurricanes, I have to get through tomorrow’s weather. At present, there’s a T-storm in progress at the airport, 11-12 miles from here; and as weather typically moves West to East, it might be headed our way. I’m glad I’m not trying to go for a ride right now; and I hope tomorrow morning’s “slight chance” of T-storms doesn’t materialize. I want to get in some more miles for Love to Ride! What if it is raining at ride time tomorrow? That depends on whether there’s lightning; and if there is, I can hitch the hybrid into the trainer. But dang it, “riding” in the trainer is very boring! Better than no ride at all!

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Haute Cuisine?

BACK ISSUES, Food /

Haute cuisine – not! On my budget, I can’t expect to have gourmet dining anywhere; and especially not on the bike! Not that I care gourmet food. The important thing is to be properly fueled; and I’ve tried many different things as ride food. Feed Zone Portables presents recipes for many easy-to-carry snacks; and I’ve tried making my own rice cakes. They tended to be too soft; and I guess I cooked the rice with a little too much water. I was always afraid the rice would be too dry; and if it was, the rice cakes would be too crumbly! I’m always on the lookout for new bar-style foods; and when I find one, I try it, such as this one: That holds true for any store: the salvage store; the regular supermarket; Whole Foods; and so on. Thanks to the salvage store, FitCrunch Birthday Cake has become a favorite. For a while, the grab-bag bins had plenty of them; but since the pandemic began, I haven’t found any. For a month or so, the salvage store has had Gatorade Whey Protein bars. They’re much cheaper than similar bars in the drug store; and while supplies last, I’m buying those Gatorade bars like crazy! These protein bars are far from haute cuisine; but that’s OK. I’m not quite “eatibus anythingus“; but I guess I come pretty close sometimes. These protein bars are far from haute cuisine; but that’s OK. I’m not quite “eatibus anythingus“; but I guess I come pretty close sometimes. Just look at my “garbage” soups — I just throw it all in the pot; and I get what I get.

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Spare Us the Obscenity

BACK ISSUES, Food /

Spare us the obscenity! What\’s all this about Tastefully NUDE? This variety of GU-Gel is unflavored; and uncolored as well. Hence the designation \”nude\”. It can be a nice change from flavored gels, especially if you eat a lot of them. Eating \”goos\” is something that I generally reserve for my Sunday long rides; but I always have a couple of them my road bike\’s top tube pouch. Occasionally I need one while out on a weekday morning ride; and I also keep a couple of them in my bike trunk\’s pocket. Now and then I need one as emergency rations. GU-Gel comes in many other flavors; including one for the coffee lover. A great favorite of mine is Chocolate Outrage; and I like Salted Caramel a lot, too. As for going nude, please spare us the obscenity.

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Hoppin’ John

BACK ISSUES, Food /

Hoppin’ John Hoppin’ John? Who on earth is that? To be honest, I have no idea who Hoppin’ John is; nor where he comes from; nor why he’s hopping. Maybe he’s a jackrabbit. Jack is a nickname for John; and what do jackrabbits do? They hop! Whatever the explanation may be, that Hoppin’ John character was famous enough to have a recipe named after him. I found it in the course of reading What Do I Eat Now? (page 151) and thought it looked interesting. Yesterday evening I tried it; taking liberties, of course. This dish is meant to be layered in a pan, but I don’t have the pan. I mixed it all up in a five-quart pot. I needed that big pot to cook the rice, anyway. One of the ingredients in the recipe is green bell pepper. I’ve never cared much for bell peppers; especially not the green kind! I substituted chopped celery; and a small amount of red bell pepper. Hoppin’ John also uses red onion. Fortunately that’s my favorite kind of onion. Raw celery can take quite a bit of chewing, so I cooked the onion and celery with the (canned) black-eyed peas while I was waiting for the rice to cook. The celery still had some crunch in it at the end; that’s fine with me. When the rice was done, I used my slotted cooking spoon to transfer the legume mix to the pot with the rice; I didn’t want too much liquid in the finished product. This recipe uses some cheese, too; I chopped up about 2.5 ounces of Monterrey Jack cheese and stirred it in. And diced canned tomatoes. “HJ” is pretty good. I began to think of variations on it right away. I think I need a chest freezer for all this stuff I keep cooking.

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