Post Category → Cat 5 Cooking

Rubber, Beans, Balls & Whore’s Chicken

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I took delivery of some new rubber today in the form of the WTB Nano TCS 2.1. I picked up the 700 x 40 version of the tires for the Jake The Snake late last fall and really liked the way they rolled on Michiganderburgh’s shit pavement, dirt and gravel roads. Sadly, I am less and less enamored with using a that cross bike for dirt road and gravel riding/racing and have been turning to my 2010 Salsa El Mariachi 99% of the time. So I decided to pick up some tubeless ready Nanos for the coming season of shit road riding. The wider girth and tubeless compatibility should be just what I am looking for. Hopefully they will be just as at ease on  [dry] Michigan singletrack for days when I want to roll the hardtail.

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Sicily, Tuna & Pasta

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I briefly mentioned in the opening paragraph of my last blog post that I made baked ziti for Wifey on Saturday to celebrate Valentine’s Day, what I didn’t mention was that while Wifey loved it, I wasn’t thrilled with it. For some reason I love Italian food but anytime I use red sauce I am left wishing I had made something else [also mentioned in the post Crush Pasta IV]. Sadly, my Valentine’s ziti was no different and I found it a sort of just “there.”

Whenever I feel I could have done a better job on a meal, especially something as simple as baked ziti, I try to make up for it as soon as possible. And that’s what I did today, poo-pooing Americanized Italian comfort food and embracing the Mediterranean flavors of Sicily.

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Trainers, Spuds & Dogs

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My mid-winter blog posts generally fall into four possible topics: riding my fatty outside, cooking up grub, riding the trainer, or Jake (the dog). The first of those topics is only mildly interesting, even to my closest of friends and family (even that is a stretch). The other three topics could surely be left unwritten about by me, especially on what purports itself to be a cycling blog. Well, since I didn’t ride outside today, I figured, I’d go ahead and talk about all three of those other things. Like they say, if you throw enough shit (or in this case shitty blog topics) against a wall, something is bound to stick.

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Geeking Out About Food Pics

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I had planned to head up north bit and roll some fat bike trails today, but the 0˚ temperature and windchill warnings made me think otherwise, as did and the work I had remaining on my kitchen ceiling, I’m, finally fixing a hole and some cracks after an upstairs leak last year. So I rolled an hour on the trainer, and made my third trip to Home Depot in as many days before setting about on getting my DIY on.

While I was there I finally picked up the supplies I needed to set about making a small ghetto light rig for taking photos of things like eBayable items, products and/or food photos. Mostly for the food photos I use in the crap nonsense posts I call Cat 5 Cooking (not to be confused with all the other crap posts, including this one).

Keep the following in mind: I KNOW this has little to nothing to do with cycling and this is a cycling blog. I do NOT consider myself a photographer (just someone who likes to take photos) and all the photos were taken with my new Nikon D3200 camera, which I am still learning (especially finding f-stop joy with the newly acquired Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens used here). This post is mainly about lighting, not the quality of the photos, subject, etc., etc., Thanks.

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Crush Pasta V

 

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There was a tradition started long ago by someone, somewhere that says eating pork on New Year’s brings good luck (probably started by the pork people). I like good luck, but I’m not a huge fan of pork (roasts, etc.,), so I ventured as close as I really wanted to into the world of pork and made my Soiled Bolognese Sauce on New Year’s Day, which just so happens to include about a 1/2 pound of ground pork along with a 1/2 pound of ground chuck. Win.

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Crush Pasta IV

Last week I made some pasta with (jarred) marinara sauce and homemade meatballs. As soon as I started eating it I found myself on my knees shaking my fork towards the food gods above, cursing them for letting me make pasta and jarred red sauce. Almost every time I eat it I end thinking it’s too salty and an evil bout of indigestion will be waiting for me within minutes of finishing. The only red pasta sauce I REALLY like these days is my homemade Bolognese sauce. With that said, I was in the mood for pasta today and remembered a recipe I made once last year that was pretty darn good and avoids straight up red sauce.

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A Different Burger

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Long time Soiled Chamois readers (all two of them) are probably familiar with my early summer Cat 5 Cooking project entitled The Soiled Burger Project; a meaty attempt at making a burger that was tastier to my aging, dulling taste buds. In my opinion, the results were great and I eventually settled on a burger that I really enjoy eating and turns out perfect for me on a consistent basis. However, I started to enjoy a few too many of them. Many pounds of ground beef were happily eaten. Then, just as I started looking into buying my own cow, and just shy of developing SCOMS (or as it is unrecognized by and not at all referred to by the American Medical Association: Severe Chronic Ongoing Meat Sweats) I decided that I had found my burger and it was time to move on… time to move on to something a bit more, how should I say this… vegetarian?

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The Soiled Burger Project Final

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The Soiled Burger Project is over (hold your applause, please), and I gotta tell you, it all seems sort of anticlimactic. I made more than a few burgers over the last month or so, surely upped my cholesterol a few points and no doubt ingested my fair share of bovine antibiotics, that will most likely prevent me from fighting off future illnesses and leave me dying of consumption in the winter to come (again, hold  your applause).

All those burgers, all that meat, all that grilling and it has come full circle to the Burger 01.

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