Feed Zone Portables Cookbook

[Dirt]

Alright! I’ve had almost 3 weeks with the new Feed Zone Portables cookbook from our friends at SkratchLabs. It surpasses my expectations on every level. My first reaction to some of the stuff that I read in the book was “This stuff is CRAZY! I’ll never eat this as ride food!” Wow was I wrong.

The first things I made were the Spiced Beef & Onion Rice Cakes. I picked the weirdest thing that I figured there’s NO WAY I can eat this on the road. Beef, onions and a LOT of ginger! I’m an adventurous eater, but that just seemed way too spicy to be chowing down on in the middle of a ride. I figured even if I like it, there’s NO FREAKIN’ WAY anyone else is going to eat them. Dang was I wrong! I love them! They’re perfect for riding. The ginger makes them easy on the stomach. I had 3 different portables with me that day. I figured VVill would eat one ’cause he likes spicy food, but that I’d be hauling them back home with me. I was wro…. wro…. WRONG!!! again. They all got chowed down and were the first to go.

What kind of crazy is it to bake a meat pie and take it as ride food? It would seem that it is not crazy at all. Beef & Sweet Potato Pies were awesome. They’re a hair under 300 calories each and make AWESOME ride food! They have many different crust options. I chose to make them in a cupcake tin so that they’d fit perfectly into my Revelate Feedbag. 4 fit into the feedbag perfectly. The crust protected the pies and they were not at all gooey. They were exactly what I was craving in the middle of a long day in the saddle.

They take a little longer to bake than the rice cakes do. I can make a big batch of rice cakes in about 40 minutes including clean-up. It took me 1h20 to bake the pies. They are definitely worth it, but I still needed to speed my production or I wouldn’t want to bake them very often. I figured it out! Double the recipe and stagger the process of making filling. I made a dozen beef pies and 10 apple pies in a hair under 2 hours (including clean-up). I made the crust first (2 individual batches in the food processor since one huge batch wouldn’t fit) then I made the beef filling. While the beef pies were baking, I cleaned up and made the apple filling. Beef pies came out, I put them on a cooling rack and stuffed the apple pies. They were in the oven in no time! I cleaned up while they were baking. They went onto a cooling rack next to the beef pies. My wife and I had pies for dinner (time saving ’cause I’m making dinner + ride food!). By the time we were done with dinner, the pies were cool and ready to wrap up. 2 pies went in the fridge for today’s ride, the rest went into the freezer in freezer bags. I’ll put them out on the counter the night before a ride and they’ll be thawed by morning. I’ve got ride food for the week!

Probably the best find for summer are the Blueberry & Chocolate Coconut Rice Cakes. They’re delicious! They’re great energy. They’re vegetarian. They got gobbled up at Kill Bill Century VERY quickly. I used lime juice instead of lemon because it was what I had. It worked perfectly and tasted great. I went easy on the salt… easier than Biju recommends… and that was a mistake. They would have been better tasting and better ride food with a bit more salt in them. He says 1.5 tsp coarse salt. I’d suggest starting with 1tsp and seeing how that tastes and adding a little from there. I only used .5tsp and that wasn’t quite enough.

The benefit of this book is that it is NOT all stuff that is difficult to make. The pies are quite involved to make and it helps to have experience making pastry dough… though they can also be your entry into getting pastry dough experience if you’re so inclined. The rice bars are easy to make. Having a good rice cooker helps. Some of the recipes are SUPER EASY! The Blueberry & Chocolate Coconut rice cakes are extremely simple. PB&J Rice Cakes take barely longer than the time it takes to cook the rice. They make GREAT ride food too. They are inexpensive and provide GREAT calories for riding.

We’re constantly exploring and having lots of fun with it. Let me know what you’ve tried. I look forward to hearing about your adventures in cooking these things. There’s LOTS of room for variations on the recipes. Changing things up changes the nutrition of the portables, but if it makes it easier to eat on the road, then it’s all good!

Have fun! Eat well!

Pete

PS: One more added benefit to these things… they’re MUCH EASIER to unwrap and eat while riding than any energy bar or gel that I’ve ever seen. Not a big deal for most, but for those of us who often eat without stopping for a break, that is HUGE!

Topic

[Bilsko]

Dirt,
What’s your experience been with medium / long term storage for rice bars and other portables? Especially with meat and/or egg recipes.

Overnight one or two nights in the fridge I’m sure is no problem. Have you tried freezing any batches for an extended amount of time?

I know that Lim and Biju addressed the issue somewhere on the website or in the first book, but it was brief and not very conclusive.

Your experience?

[Dirt]

@Bilsko 50546 wrote:

Dirt,
What’s your experience been with medium / long term storage for rice bars and other portables? Especially with meat and/or egg recipes.

Overnight one or two nights in the fridge I’m sure is no problem. Have you tried freezing any batches for an extended amount of time?

I know that Lim and Biju addressed the issue somewhere on the website or in the first book, but it was brief and not very conclusive.

Your experience?

One of the things that makes rice great as the basis of energy food is that it breaks down into energy SUPER easily in your system. Unfortunately, it does so outside of your system too.

A few days in the fridge is fine for rice cakes. Too much more than that and it isn’t good. Good thing is that your nose will tell you when they’ve turned.

I don’t like freezing rice cakes because they come out dry.

Some of the recipes do VERY well with freezing. Rice Waffles are a great example. The pies are also great out of the freezer.

Great question, sir!

Dirt.

[jrenaut]

I’ve already sent the recipe for some of the rice cakes from their other cookbook along to my brother-in-law so he can shop before I arrive and we can make them for the century on Saturday.

[Dirt]

Talked to Biju this afternoon and he wanted me to make sure that y’all know that it is best to thaw stuff overnight in the fridge. That is really the safest way to take pies out of the freezer and have them ready for the next day’s ride. I have in the past taken stuff out and left it on the kitchen counter overnight. Look how it made me turn out. Let that be a lesson to you!

[jrenaut]

I made a batch of Allen’s Rice Cakes from the Feed Zone cookbook for my century. For those that don’t have the book, these are basically bacon and eggs and sushi rice. They were awesome for the century. I don’t have anything to compare it to, having never ridden that far, but they were totally easy on my stomach, and I managed to finish the ride in pretty good shape. They weren’t all I ate – the rest stops were well stocked – but they were definitely the bulk of it.

Some notes – I didn’t add brown sugar on top, as the recipe says you can. This was fine through the first two pit stops (before the start, at mile 25, and at mile 48, more or less). Around mile 70 was lunch, and I had a turkey sandwich (which was DELICIOUS, I suspect mostly due to all the riding. The most delicious sandwich I’ve ever had was a bologna and cheese on fluffy white bread after whitewater rafting all morning).

After lunch, I did not want any more of the rice cakes. I really wanted something sweet. Bananas and peanut butter cookies at the last rest stop (mile 85) hit the spot, but I think next time I do a ride like this, I might bring a few more savory things for early on, and something sweet later.

Anyway, I highly recommend their cookbooks.

[Greenbelt]

If you don’t have time to make your own fresh ride food, I can recommend the “granola bars” at the counter at Ebenezer’s on 2nd street NE in Capitol Hill/NOMA area. Got one on the way home last night, and half did the job for the ride home and the other have for this morning’s commute. I tolerate Clif bars fine, but better to buy fresh local, no preservatives etc from now on…

[Tim Kelley]

When I make rice cakes, I substitute some of the brown sugar for maple syrup. Yum!

Someone ask Mark about his bread roll ups from this past weekend…

[Dirt]

Two new entries here.

The baked eggs recipe is AWESOME! I was skeptical. They turned out great!

I added bacon, Parmesan cheese and a pinch of coarse sea salt.

I also made Rice Cakes in a hotel room last month for the hell of it. The process was interesting!

http://lovemycommute.blogspot.com/2013/05/rice-cakes-on-road.html

Dirt

[Steve]

@Dirt 52878 wrote:

The baked eggs recipe is AWESOME! I was skeptical. They turned out great!

My wife makes something similar looking for breakfast throughout the week, perhaps the same thing? She scrambles twelve eggs, adds a tiny bit of milk, and then pours it into a twelve count muffin tin. She then adds whatever she fancies that day (ham and cheese, basil, halved grape tomatoes, cheese, salt and pepper, etc) and bakes it for about 20 minutes. They keep really well for about 5-7 days, and make a really easy and tasty breakfast treat without having to cook in the morning. We usually microwave it for 20 seconds or so.

[DaveK]

@Steve 52888 wrote:

My wife makes something similar looking for breakfast throughout the week, perhaps the same thing? She scrambles twelve eggs, adds a tiny bit of milk, and then pours it into a twelve count muffin tin. She then adds whatever she fancies that day (ham and cheese, basil, halved grape tomatoes, cheese, salt and pepper, etc) and bakes it for about 20 minutes. They keep really well for about 5-7 days, and make a really easy and tasty breakfast treat without having to cook in the morning. We usually microwave it for 20 seconds or so.

I make breakfast burritos in a similar fashion – dozen eggs, a pound of sausage, peppers and onions, cheese, and green chiles all cooked up together and wrapped up individually in the freezer. It gives me about two, two and a half weeks of (basically) instant breakfasts for an hour of work. I’ve actually thought about using frozen ones as ride food for the summer and letting them defrost in my jersey… I have a feeling that wouldn’t be too sanitary though.

[Tim Kelley]

@DaveK 52919 wrote:

I’ve actually thought about using frozen ones as ride food for the summer and letting them defrost in my jersey…

Let’s test that this weekend.

[7rider]

Pete.

I found this thread from a Google search for feed zone portables. I just picked up the books and have been playing around with some recipes.

I keep searching for a good explanation on how to UNwrap the cakes – particularly one handed while moving on a bike.
got any tips for that?

Thanks.

[PotomacCyclist]

Here’s a podcast interview with one of the co-authors, Biju Thomas, from Endurance Planet last month:

http://www.enduranceplanet.com/biju-thomas-chef-of-the-feed-zone-cookbook-and-feed-zone-portables-on-clean-eating-for-performance-surviving-the-holidays-and-much-more/

[Author]

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