I caught a cold after our vacation and was finally feeling better this weekend. (Imagine that! Not riding for a month outdoors because of the crappy weather then I go and ride like a wild woman for 6 days straight. No possibility of getting sick. Right.) I taught spin class at Tim's Gym in Lititz on Saturday and was a bit labored with my breathing so I opted to do a 4-mile run with some girlfriends I don't see often. First mistake: Running. I do not run. Second mistake: running. I had a great time with my friends but all I could think about was how sore I was going to be for the next few days. At least I rode to our meeting point (3 miles) hoping that would loosen up my legs after the run. Ha!
Today we rode our "Sunday Ride". A 40-mile rolling loop. A bit chilly on the lungs at 10:30 a.m. with 45 degrees and some wind. A lot of wind, I must say for someone coming off of a head cold. I rode solo for the last half and thought about food the whole time. It is amazing how much the wind and the cold can take it out of you. I planned dinner while I was riding because I tend to obsess what the next meal will be. I finally arrived home, dropped the bike on the back porch, hobbled into the house because I could not walk from the frickin' running I did yesterday and devoured a third of a banana bread I made weeks ago for our Asheville adventure. I made three loaves and froze two for moments like these. I piled on Nutella and I came back to life.
One of the main reasons I created this blog is to share my love of riding and food. Riding makes me want to cook and eat a lot, especially in the winter months. I hardly ever follow a recipe to a tee. I usually alter it, especially to make it healthy.
Banana Bread:
Take any favorite banana bread recipe and health it up with some whole wheat flour instead of white. Try the recipe with half white flour and half whole wheat flour. This last batch I used all whole wheat and it was not too dense. I cut back on the sugar by a 1/4 cup. I actually ran out of butter and substituted some applesauce. Used eggs whites instead of the whole egg. I put in 3 different kinds of chocolate chips (1/2 c each of white, semi-sweet and choc), pecans and craisins.
Dinner:
While I was riding, I planned to have the steaks in the freezer. Rice, potatoes, I didn't care. Veggies, we didn't have anything fresh. I just knew I wanted those steaks.
I pulled out the steaks, took forever to finalize the blog-thing and we went shopping for the week. We normally don't go food shopping together. I think it is a waste of time. One can shop, the other can do something else around the house. I guess every once in a while it is great bonding time, like eating dinner together. We don't have kids so we eat together all the time and it is a plus that we both love to cook.
The steaks didn't thaw. So I wanted to eat about half of what we bought today.
We keep our cooking simple. We did the usual stir-fry in a big skillet: olive oil, garlic, onions, button and shiitake mushrooms, red peppers and asparagus. We bought fresh Hong Kong style pan fried noodles from an Asian market down the street. boiled in less than 5 minutes. Ymmmm. Any kind of noodles go great with this veggie stir-fry. We tend to use a lot of olive oil, too, so we pour the mixture over our noodles.
While that was going on - we baked cajun-seasoned catfish for 15-20 minute at 400. When the fish is fresh, it is about done when it starts to "sweat".
I make my own cajun-seasoning from Paul Prud'Homme recipe I got out of one of the small picture cookbooks that are outside the bookstores for cheap (that was before the internet explosion). I quadruple the recipe and put it in a mason jar so we are set for months. We use it on all of our fish and meats.
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic salt
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 teaspoon cayenne
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
(After typing this recipe, it may be the only recipe I do not alter.)
Hummmmmm. An easy dinner in an hour. I'm happy.
We opened one of the bottles of beers we bought in
I don't think I mentioned all the beer we bought while on vacation. It was like we were in
