Eating on Tour

[oldgroundhog]

After 20,000 miles of touring, I'm ready for something NEW to eat on the road beside macaroni/cheese and Lipton side dishes for a evening meal.  

So let me ask my fellow touring cyclists if you could share a few of your favorite recipes.  Many Thanks!

[staehpj1]

The meals I enjoy most on the road always seem to involve fresh produce.  I don't have any particular recipes to share, but whatever it is, it is better with fresh local produce.

If you need to carry something more durable, freeze dried peas and carrots are the best of the freeze dried veggies.  Some freeze dried onions add some zip if fresh aren't an option.

For staples I rely a lot on minute rice and dried refried beans at dinner time.  Tortillas are a fav for both lunch and dinner.

Sauteing up an onion and maybe a pepper do wonders to liven up a pasta and red sauce dinner.

Corn on the cob or boiled potatoes add a lot to a meal and can almost be a meal by themselves.

At lunch I always try to have something fresh and crunchy to go along with the meal.

Cabbage works well because it can be used to give crunch to wraps or sandwiches, can be boiled at dinner time and can even be used as the outer part of a wrap instead of tortillas.  It travels well too.  The bags of coleslaw mix are a good option sometimes.

Fresh avocados are a favorite in wraps, sandwiches or just with chips.

Foil packed tuna or salmon work well as do hard cheeses and creamed cheese.

Reconstituted dried hummus sandwiches work well at lunch time especially with veggies.

When keeping it simple bagels with peanut butter and jelly make a good lunch.

This message was edited by staehpj1 on 3-15-08 @ 1:23 PM

[raybo]

This page from www.biketouringtips.com has 7 links to food and bike touring.

As I see it, there are two different kinds of eating on tour.  The first is the food you buy and eat right away, say sandwiches during the day.  The second is the food that you carry for cooking at a later time, say at a campsite.

I try to stock up on daily foods, like sandwiches and other "eat directly" stuff, before I leave for my day's ride.  I look for sandwich shops, grocery stores, or restaurants where I can get a "to-go" meal, fruit, or something else I eat while on the road without cooking.

I also try to carry cooking ingredients for two meals (usually dinner that night and breakfast the next morning).  I always try to get some fresh vegetables (broccoli is my favorite) to add to pasta or oriental noodles.  I usually have oatmeal for breakfast, if there isn't a restaurant near where I have stopped.

As for ingredients, I carry pasta or raman, oatmeal, olive oil, soy sauce, corn starch (for making a sauce), crushed red peppers (packets from a pizza place), Parmesan cheese (again from a pizza place), sugar packets from a restaurant, cinnamon, salt and pepper.  In a pinch, pasta, olive oil, parmesan cheese, and crushed red peppers will make a palatable meal.

Ray

Visit the on-line bike touring archive at www.biketouringtips.com

[bogiesan]

Recipes are too subjective. Suggest you examine any of the several
backpacking recipe books like the Roughing It Easy series. There are
incredibly delicious freeze dried meals on the market these days.
Expensive emergency rations but light, easy to prepare, and nutritious.
I'm not a fan of carbohydrate-based bike touring plans. Eat lots of
locally produced foods. if you can find them, like fresh fruits and
veggies. Here in Idaho, you might run into locally superb peahces,
cherries, strawberries, melons, lamb, veal, buffalo, beef, ostrich,
steelhead, crawfish, trout, salmon, and sturgeon. Wines. Baked goods.

The trick is to get off the bike and walk around the little towns. Stop at
those roadside stalls.

david boise ID




go, ristretto, FCP/AE
"Read the manual."

[Double_Leo]

Pick up a box of frozen fried chicken during the day. Insulate it well and it will be safe and cold when it's time to camp. Fire up the stove and pan fry. Yum Yum.

[driftlessregion]

Hamburger with tomatoes of some kind (canned stewed, chopped or fresh if possible), and any number of seasonings: lots of paprika, those dry packets, over whatever starch you can find: noodles or rice or potatoes.  Lentils cooked with onions, carrots and soy sauce. TVP (texturized vegetable protein) requires no refrigeration and can be added to anything for some protein. Carrots and onions carry well.

On a tour in Iowa on the Mississippi River we stopped at a small commercial fisherman's shop (shack really) and had fresh fish that night. MMM.

[RangerTom]

Groundhog- thanks for getting this topic started.

We've typically carried a package of Ramen, small can stewed tomatoes, and small can shredded chicken as our standby meal if we miss hitting a grocer or restuarant for an evening meal. When we can add fresh veggies,cheese, fresh rolls or tortillas and butter then we've got a bonus meal. Pretty standard deal but good any time.

Now here's a good one. I awoke one morning during a short cool weather trip when I had a couple eggs, Maple/Brown sugar instant outmeal (the "always carry some/breakfast backup"), and leftover butter. Deciding I wanted to use it up, I fired up the SVEA stove, melted the butter and browned the outmeal. Then threw in the eggs and scrambled them in. YIKES!!!!  was that ever delicious. Its like dessert - really! It's now referred to as Dad's Camping Surprise.

Just thinking of doing this post got my mouth watering so I made a quick serving - still delicious. One egg with one package of instant oatmeal works well. We can buy 1/2 dozen eggs and a stick of butter to haul when temps are going to be cool.  Found that it's handy to carry one or two of those Glad or Ziplock type sealable sandwich sized boxes. They're real light and fit pretty well in a bag when the tops are off. There great for pulling out to haul anything you pickup and don't want to crush in transit such as a sandwich, that fresh pastry you come across that you want to save for a later treat, eggs, grapes, etc.  

So tourists, try out the Camping Surprise and lets see some more good road meal ideas!

Tom

 
                 

[paddleboy17]

I have always toured through small towns and have had the luxury of buying the ingredients for dinner that afternoon.

My personal favorite is Rice Aroni, canned/chunked ham, and canned pineaple.  The ham usually have enough fat to cook the Rice Aroni.  You can even cook it on an MSR Whisperlite (no simmer capability) if you stir it enough.  Feel free to fortify it with vegetables if you want.  The pineaple makes a wonderful desert.

[nicholu]

i like to eat good, so i bring some basic cooking supplies: olive oil, garlic, onions, spices: italian seasoning, thyme, oregano, bay leaf, salt and pepper. and even, don't laugh, flour.

:: sautée one onion and three cloves of garlic in oil. then add water and boil with two-three handfuls of lentils and one handful of rice. salt to taste. delicious! for an added flair around in june/ july i pick spent blossoms of orange day lilies and throw that in with the lentils. not only does it thicken the meal, but adds an extra vegetable.

:: potato and corn stew. fry onion with salt and then add water and chop of the potato small so they cook faster and boil that hard and long! when its soft i add some corn shucked from fresh husks.

:: fried bread! mix flour and water to make a dough. shape into a tortilla-like shape and drop into some hot oil, fry until golden brown. these are amazing, if there are wild berries in season you will delight your palette by picking a cupful and stuffing them inside the dough to make berry pierogis. fried, they are at the top of camping gourmet.  

:: spagetti is a good standard. i make the sauce by frying an onion, some garlic in olive oil and then adding a can of tomato sauce and italian seasoning.

:: for a real treat i buy a dozen eggs from a roadside stand and fry up 6 for dinner and the rest for breakfast. i eat mine overeasy with toast.

[brad]

i echo the thoughts above - as long as you are touring in or near civilization you can eat well.

i usually just carry a 24 hour supply of emergency food and buy my groceries daily.

[mdxix]

Three secret ingredients:

- Fresh fruit (banana, apple, pear, whatever is available)
- Nutella
- Fresh bread

[mlt22193]

I didn't see anyone mention all the packages of tuna, salmon, chicken you can get in any grocery store. They're already seasoned, don't need to be kept cold and are in packets instead of cans.  They pack small and are light. And they don't need to be cooked.  Sometimes I'll mix the tuna with a diced up avocado and eat right out of the packet.  Or roll it all up in a tortilla.  I agree, go fresh with the fruits and veggies whenever you can.  I also found one serving pudding envelopes at Trader Joe's.  Trader Joe's is a great store to find "odd" packaged food.