Gotta Eat, Can't Cook

April 11th, 2022

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Pineapple, Yogurt, Jam, and Dried Fruit Picture Book Recipe

Last post showed how to ripen and cut a fresh pineapple as easily as possible. Here’s a fully flavorful, very easy-to-make way to enjoy cut pineapple for breakfast, lunch, dessert or as a refuel snack after pushing yourself physically. As always, the ingredients you see below are only suggestions. Use your imagination to make your pineapple, yogurt, jam, and dried fruit all yours!

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

Next post: an example of how to improvise on this recipe.

April 8th, 2022

Blog, Breakfast, Fruit, How To & Tips

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How to Ripen and Cut Fresh Pineapple Picture Book Directions

The sweet, tropical flavor and soft crunch and pop texture of fresh pineapple is just as fully satisfying on its own as it is mixed with other flavors. More about that later.

First, the picture book directions you can get by clicking this link or any picture on this page…

…show how to ripen a pineapple (that almost always comes to market underripe),…

…how to make a ripened pineapple take up less space in your refrigerator and…

…how to cut a pineapple as easy as possible.

Next blog: some easy-to-make pineapple recipes. All fun and full-on flavorful!

April 2nd, 2022

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

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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 28th, 2022

Blog, How To & Tips, Nutrition

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What’s Really In a Recipe Ingredient?

What really is in an ingredient needed to put together a recipe?

That question – and the idea of fairness – popped in my head while I was laying out the last post that compared the ingredients of a random sample of store bought packaged power bars…

…with a homemade power bar sandwich made with the ingredients shown here.

As shown above, the packaged bars all have their ingredients listed by quantity in order of the most used to least used ingredient.

I listed the ingredients used to make the power bar sandwich in the same way: whole grain bread; choice of honey, jam or cookie spread; nut butter; fresh fruit; raisins; and chocolate chips.

But my list doesn’t say it all. Sure, bananas are bananas, blueberries are blueberries and raisins are raisins. And, the nut butter I use I make myself with just lightly salted and unsalted almonds and ground flaxseed, as shown here.

But the rest of the ingredients are much more complex, meaning that they themselves are made with a lot of ingredients. Here’s what’s in the whole grain bread I used to make the power bar sandwich:

Though I’m not a big fan of the added sugar, the rest of the ingredients look fine to me – and I’m sure not going to start off making the power bar sandwich by first baking the bread needed to make that sandwich.

Then there’s the choice of honey, jam and/or cookie spread. As shown below, the honey is just honey. The jam is made with fig paste, sugar, water and lemon juice. Simple enough.

But then there’s the cookie spread, which tastes great but is also made with many more ingredients than the honey and jam, including a good shot of added sugar. (A quick side note regarding nutrition labels: the first thing to check on any nutrition label is serving size. As you can see in the above picture, the cookie spread serving size is 2 tablespoons, which is twice the serving size of the 1 tablespoon serving size for honey and jam. That means that tablespoon for tablespoon, which is about all you need to make the power bar sandwich, fig butter has 45 calories, honey has 60 calories and cookie spread has 85 calories.)

Finally, here are the ingredients needed to make the chocolate chips:

The point here is that there are actually a lot of unseen/unnoticed ingredients that go into complex ingredients, like the bread and spreads, needed to make the power bar sandwich just as there are many ingredients that go into making any recipe that calls for prepared ingredients like canned or jarred products, sauces and seasonings – or just about anything found in the center aisles of the the grocery store.

The key take away here is that it’s important to be curious about what exactly you are putting into any food you make, especially if you have dietary restrictions. Being curious then means actually looking at nutrition labels in the store and deciding what works best for you before actually buying that food. Yes, that takes a bit more time, but the payoff to you and those sharing what you make for them to eat is well worth that time.

March 22nd, 2022

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

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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

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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 8th, 2022

Blog, Empowerment

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Celebrating International Women’s Day Beyond Today

I’d never heard of it until an NBDA (National Bike Dealers Assoc.) “Women in the Cycling Industry” Zoom call last month, but today is the 111th International Women’s Day.

Earlier today, the first song I heard on an a cappella music station was “In the Blood” by Home Free that started with the words,

How much of my Mother
Has my Mother left in me

My answer: quite a lot, which I always appreciate and never take for granted.

And, in the same way I remember my mom for who she was and her spirit that lives on in me,…

…the real deal about recognizing today’s specially designated day is living daily with a respectful and positively constructive attitude in every interaction with women – and men.

As a narrow point of approach, we’re planning an International Women’s Day: Together We Ride bike ride this Saturday here in Hickory, North Carolina, to include cyclists of all abilities. That, too, will be a specially designated event, but the long-term intent of the ride is to make cycling more welcoming to women, who are greatly outnumbered in our community by men cyclists. I look forward to seeing that gap close – and not only in the cycling world!

March 4th, 2022

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

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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

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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 22nd, 2022

Blog, Cooking Technique, Nutrition, One Bowl Meals, Pasta

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Microwave Cooked High Protein-High Fiber Pasta with Instant Tomato Sauce Picture Book Recipe

Putting together leftover pasta, tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese as shown here is incredibly flavorful, quick and easy.

Quick and easy, though, can come at a cost.

Salt, sugar and fat are the 3 main sources of flavor, and that is keenly important to bear in mind when you’re using any packaged or prepared foods, with salt (or sodium) being of most concern here for reasons outlined in the pasta and sauce recipe you can download by clicking this link.

Right now, let’s look at the three ingredients regarding their salt, sugar and fat content.

The first thing to look at on a nutrition label is serving size, circled in blue, because that number directly relates to all the quantity of the components (fat, cholesterol, etc.) listed below serving size. As listed on their nutrition labels, the high protein-high fiber soybean pastas I used have no sodium and very little fat. The only sugar comes from sugar in the soybeans. That’s fine.

To be fair, here are nutrition labels from two packages of traditional wheat-based pasta. You can see that the fat content for both, 1 gram, is minimal per 2 ounce serving. You can also see that these pastas contain no sodium or sugar. Of course, the biggest difference between the pastas above and below is the significant increase in protein and fiber found in the high protein-high fiber pastas.

Below are the nutrition labels from the tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese I used. One of the important numbers not listed on any of these nutrition labels is the daily allowed amount/value of sodium, which is 2300 milligrams (mg) per adult.

As shown above, the serving size for the sauce is 1/2 cup. 1/2 cup equals 4 ounces or 8 tablespoons. The serving size for the Parmesan cheese is 1/4 cup, which is the same as 2 ounces or 4 tablespoons. To make the pasta and sauce recipe featured here, I used 3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) of tomato sauce (165 mg sodium) and about 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese (95 mg sodium) for a total of 260 mg sodium with both the sauce and cheese combined. 260 mg is 11% of the recommended daily sodium allowance of 2300 mg.

You can also see that the fat in the sauce is almost nothing, but seems to be high with the cheese. Again, serving size is most important. I only used 1 tablespoon of shredded Parmesan cheese, which is 1/4 of the serving size, which then translates to 1.75 grams of total fat or 2.25% of the recommended daily allowance of total fat and 1.1 grams/6% daily allowance of saturated fat.

Finally, the tomato sauce contains almost no sugar, especially in relationship to the 3 tablespoon serving size I used. The cheese contains no sugar at all.

Both the information above and how to use it to determine what you actually take into your body apply to all packaged or prepared foods, which you know from experience make up most of the floor space in a grocery store.

Click this link or the photo below for picture book directions that show how to make high protein-high fiber pasta – or any pasta – with tomato sauce.