Fitness Food | Gotta Eat, Can't Cook

Archive for the ‘Fitness Food’ Category

June 10th, 2022

Anti-Inflammatory Foods, Anti-inflammatory Recipes, Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, Running Food, Salads & Salad Dressings

Comments Off

Improvising: Top Gun Maverick and Fresh Spinach & Berry Salad S2E

If you’ve seen the new, fantastically fun Top Gun Maverick movie, you know the “Mav” is all about improvising on the fly and living to fight another day.

If you’re a regular here, you also know I consider improvisation the spice of life, and that spice of life is all about fun.

Here’s an example. Last post showed how to make this very simple but fully flavorful fresh spinach and berries salad – great summertime stuff!

Now, here are some ingredients you can use to take that same salad from simple to exciting (S2E) all very easily.

Sure, these ingredients look like a lot. But don’t let that bother you. They just represent a range of choices you can pick from or substitute with anything you like to make your salad all your own regarding flavor and dietary needs.

Click this link or the picture below for picture book directions and,…

…back to Top Gun – and fun. The “Mav” might have the bad guys – and the Navy – but he’s got nothing on us roadies. Ha!

May 7th, 2022

Blog, Breakfast, Cereal, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Grains, Hiking Food, One Bowl Meals

Comments Off

Whole Grain Cereal with Fresh Fruit & Kefir Picture Book Recipe

Last post showed how to use Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Cereal to put together a fully flavorful energy igniting/energy sustaining breakfast bowl. In that post I mentioned that recipes are just suggested guides that can be altered to meet your specific taste and dietary needs.

And, even though that post featured Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Cereal as the main ingredient, you certainly can make that recipe – or something very much like it – using any cereal you like. True to that word, here’s what I’ll call a “twist on a twist” based on a breakfast I had in Germany years ago, “Bircher Muesli mit Obst und Yoghurt” (Muesli with fruit and yogurt), that usually comes in two separate bowls, as shown here.

It is certainly easy to see from the ingredients I use below to make what I call Whole Grain Cereal with Fresh Fruit & Kefir that my interpretation of the recipe is quite a bit different than what I had in Germany.

And, that’s exactly where the fun comes in – and all it takes is a little imagination and, sure, some risk taking, to make the most of that fun.

Click this link or any picture on this page for the Whole Grain Cereal with Fresh Fruit & Kefir Picture Book Recipe that you can use as is or vary however you like.

Next post: what exactly is kefir and why do I feature it so much?

May 2nd, 2022

Blog, Breakfast, Cereal, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Hiking Food, One Bowl Meals, Running Food

Comments Off

Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal Breakfast Bowl Picture Book Recipe

Here’s one very easy, fully flavorful way I use the Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Cereal featured in the last post to put together a “fire me up and keep me going!” pre-ride sustained energy breakfast bowl made with…

…these ingredients.

I say “pre-ride” because cycling is what I do most, but this breakfast bowl works just as well to prepare for any physical activity: run, hike, gym, anything that requires sustained energy.

Regarding the recipe itself, as mentioned in the picture book directions you can get by clicking this link or any picture on this page,…

…what you see for ingredients here are only suggestions intended to inspire your imagination to make your own breakfast bowl all your own.

April 29th, 2022

Blog, Breakfast, Cereal, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Running Food

Comments Off

Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal Picture Book Recipe

Last post was about how to repurpose a failed recipe. The Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Bars I tried to make didn’t work out as intended as solid bars that would stay together in bar form if taken along on a bike ride, run or hike. But the crumbling result, packed with fully flavorful ingredients, sure worked fine as a robust cereal rich with both “get up and go” fast fuel complex carbohydrates and energy sustaining protein and healthy fats – and tastes great!

The recipe for Chocolate, Grain & Nut Butter Power Cereal uses these ingredients…

…and is actually two recipes in one as it shows first how to cook quinoa if you want to use quinoa and don’t already have it cooked when you start putting the power cereal together.

Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete picture book recipe.

Next post will show how I use this cereal to power up before a good bike ride.

More soon!

April 2nd, 2022

Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, How To & Tips, Nutrition, Running Food

Comments Off

More Specific Banana Nut Butter Bar Ingredient Details

Timing can be great!

Last post earlier this week discussed what’s really in an ingredient and what that means to you, especially if you have dietary restrictions. Then, entirely coincidentally, this week I got a text from a good cycling bud asking whether to use sweetened or unsweetened coconut flakes and what type of chocolate chips to use to make Banana Nut Butter Power Bars. He couched his question with a note that his skills are pretty much limited to toasting Pop Tarts. Excellent on all fronts!

I loved the question! Right away, I tore down the old recipe to revise it with this more descriptive list of ingredients and…

…these new directions that you can get by clicking this link or any picture on this page.

Always glad to make changes – that’s “learning and adapting” life in action. And what I like best is hearing what works and doesn’t work for people actually using any recipe I put on this site so that I can help make your work – and mine – in the kitchen as easily fully flavorful as possible. That’s life enriched!

March 22nd, 2022

Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Running Food, Sports Nutrition

Comments Off

Power Bar Sandwich Picture Book Recipe

Very easy to make, fully flavorful, energy sustaining power bar sandwich

A good friend, George, popped me this power bar meme the other day.

The reason for disappointment: just look at the ingredients listed on a random search for power/protein bar nutrition labels.

Sample of commercially available power bar ingredient labels

About the only flavorful – and potentially real – ingredients in the above three labels combined are organic cashew butter, chocolate, peanuts and peanut butter.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

For the past 2 weeks, since two good cycling buds, Sean and Eddie, asked on a ride about making homemade power bars, I’ve been reworking older power bar recipes and working up new ones – and have sure learned a lot.

The most important lesson learned – that sometimes came the hard way: make is fully flavorful as quickly and easily as possible. And that’s how I approached this very easy-to-make power bar sandwich made with only the fully flavorful and full-on energy sustaining ingredients shown below: whole grain bread; nut butter; choice of honey, jam (fig butter) or cookie spread; fresh fruit; raisins; and chocolate chips.

Regarding proof under fire, the power bar sandwich you see here – with coffee -…

…sustained me easily, with no need to refuel on the fly, for a 40+ mile North Carolina bike ride.

Click this link or any picture on this page for power bar sandwich picture book directions.

March 14th, 2022

Blog, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Running Food, Snacks

Comments Off

Banana Nut Butter Power Bars, Part 2: Boosted Flavor

Here’s how to take banana nut butter power bar flavor from good to great!

No doubt you’ve had the experience; You bite into something and think, “Yah, that’s good, but it could really be better if…”

That’s exactly what I thought when I tasted a fresh batch of the banana nut butter bars I posted recently – and you know the deal here: flavor rules. And not that those bars didn’t taste good. They did. But good isn’t good enough. So, right away, I made another fresh batch with adjusted ingredient quantities, as shown in blue below.

Here’s how a bowl full of flavor boosted banana nut butter power bars came back after coffee with my good Hickory buds.

Click this link or any picture on this page to download the freshly revised picture book recipe.

March 4th, 2022

Blog, Cycling Food, Dessert, Fitness Food, Nutrition, Nuts, Running Food

Comments Off

Banana Nut Butter Power Bar Picture Book Recipe

These potently flavorful, easy to make banana nut butter power bars work great for dessert or as an on-the-go sport power bar. As you see in the picture above, I prefer making them in the toaster oven for ease and speed, though the picture book directions linked to this post also show how to bake them in a standard kitchen oven.

Regarding the ingredients shown above and below, I know it looks like a lot – but don’t panic. The spices (cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg) along with vanilla extract are the cornerstones of the full flavor of these bars. If you don’t have some of those spices, just use a little more of what you do have. You can also use juice (apple cider works great) instead of coffee and substitute ground flaxseeds, chia seeds, and whole grain cereal with any other ground similar type of ingredient, like ground nuts or your favorite cereal. The bottom line: imagination and available ingredients are your only limits.

Click this link or any picture on this page for a complete, easy-to-follow step-by-step picture book recipe.

February 28th, 2022

Blog, Cycling, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, Grains, Nutrition, Running, Running Food, Snacks

Comments Off

Quinoa Power Bar Picture Book Directions

Killer North Carolina cycling & quinoa power bars the 3 to the right of “dude” left (me) haven’t yet tried (next ride, men!)

A few terrific cycling buds asked me on a ride this weekend if I have any recipes for power bars. I do: Quinoa Power Bars and Banana Nut Butter Power Bars.

The keys to a good power bar: a mix of simple and complex carbohydrates that your body breaks down quickly for immediate burn, healthy fats and protein that take longer to break down for sustained energy burn – and killer good flavor! Both the quinoa and banana nut butter bars provide exactly that.

First, quinoa power bars because I just updated that recipe yesterday with relatively new nutritional information and directions showing how to grind whole chia seeds to get the most out of them. I’ll update the banana nut butter bars next.

Click this link or any picture on this page for step-by-step quinoa power bar picture book directions.

February 18th, 2022

Blog, Cooking Technique, Cycling Food, Fitness Food, How To & Tips, Pasta, Running Food, Videos

Comments Off

How to Cook High Protein-High Fiber Pasta Picture Book and Video Directions

Picture book and video directions show how to cook fantastically versatile high protein-high fiber pasta

Just put out this 4 minute YouTube video showing how to cook high protein-high fiber pasta using a combination of black soy bean and edamame (young, green soybean) pasta.

Why high protein-high fiber pasta? First: flavor always rules here, and just like traditional wheat-based pasta, you can add flavor to it any way you like. I’ll show examples in future posts like what you see below: full-on flavorful high protein-high fiber pasta with fruit and mozzarella cheese.

High protein-high fiber pasta with fruit and mozzarella cheese

Second, but most importantly for your body, just about everybody could use more fiber and high quality protein in their diet. Click this link or the picture below for a quick take on fiber and what it does for us.