Tempehquito

  • Cook Lentils and Brown rice (from dry state)
  • Boil water in small pot, add sugar/pepper/sriracha and simmer
  • Add chopped Onions and minced Garlic once liquid had evaporated from Rice/Lentils
  • Grill Tempeh, cool and slice
  • Turn oven on low, warming Tortillas
  • Add Chipotle Powder and Dill to small pot
  • Slice Daiya, chop Tomato, Scallions, Radish & Cilantro
  • MAKE AVOCADO CREAM

thumb_IMG_6600_1024

  1. Vegenaise
  2. Chopped Daiya
  3. Scallions
  4. Chipotle powder
  5. Cilantro
  6. Avocado

thumb_IMG_6577_1024

  • Turn small pot on high boiling adhesive mixture and turn off
  • Use adhesive to Tortilla after Tempeh and Daiya has been stuffed
  • Seal and bake
  • Construct deliciousness.

thumb_IMG_6598_1024thumb_IMG_6599_1024thumb_IMG_6601_1024thumb_IMG_6602_1024thumb_IMG_6595_1024thumb_IMG_6568_1024thumb_IMG_6562_1024

 

Wet Fenders Commute

Everyone has their own routine when it comes to getting to work. I usually Cycle on one of my bicycles to work, but in the past on rainy days, I’ve teleported to my job acting as duct tape to reconnect my man-card. Today was an unusual rainy workday for me lately. I took my newly renewed (intact) man-card and rode my ass to work in the rain. I extremely enjoyed it as the consequences were simply wetness and awesomeness. I felt alive and more alive than I normally do. I don’t know if any readers (my pretend readers) have similar lifestyles (my pretend reader know what i am talking about), but there are a few secrets that I noticed on my damp commute today.

thumb_IMG_6463_1024

I normally carry work clothes in a pack (backpack) with other essential things like keys wallet and phone. My wallet is 2×3 and carries two cards with occasional cash stuffed in. I have fenders on my first (real) bike. Which today enlightened me that I need a new bike.

  • Use disc brakes in the rain.
  • Put work clothes in bag inside your pack to keep dry.
  • Bring a towel (which I did:)
  • Bring a change of socks.
  • As always, #RideOn.

The heart rate being elevated before work gives me more attentive work days. Rough work days are forgotten and positively vented with harder riding after work making it vastly easier to fight the grind in the morning.

thumb_IMG_6478_1024

Broke

I hope y’all had an awesome weekend!

thumb_IMG_6480_1024

(pictures not from my wet commute)

SOS-P(lant)B(ased)S(alad)-SOS

I’m just an amateur Vegan. I do not know everything, but not relying on the processed “plant-based” (already prepared, meat substitute) food puts my tastebuds and my heart in a mad-love (freaky sex kinda mad-love) relationship. I love a good majority of those foods, but they leave my heart lighter. thumb_IMG_6257_1024

Consider me a rock star Vegan with an instrument of choice being a bicycle and a beer. I don’t follow rules, and I strongly understand that recipes are guidelines that are meant to be explored and mapped just like lands of this world many years ago.

thumb_IMG_6255_1024

I chopped Romaine Lettuce finely. I combined Romaine, Scallions, Carrots, Black Beans, Raw Spanish Peanuts into a bowl after roasting Golden Potatoes, Fennel, Corn and Garlic lightly roasted. I also roasted some bread. And my dressing of choice was pre-made Balsamic Vinaigrette mixed with Sriracha hot sauce. It was delicious and my heart, tastebuds and tummy had a threesome.

thumb_IMG_6251_1024

My sense of humor even leaves myself on my toes. Happy Wednesday!

thumb_IMG_6249_1024

Sunday Ride On

I encountered a strange different style of riding yesterday. Not so much strange, just a change of pace on a strenuous ride. I have been riding solo for the last few weeks, which happens and is totally fine. A buddy was going to commute to his new job for the first time. Which doesn’t seem like a big deal, except for it being just short of 30 miles. When I ride, I rarely start before 9am.

thumb_IMG_6119_1024

Yesterday, I left to meet up with my buddy at 6:12 am. When I open (for my job) I leave about the same time. On a day off, this is unheard of by me. We rode the 45 kilometers and met up with a couple of engineers who we occasionally ride with for some breakfast. I enjoyed water and a peanut butter Vegan Cliff bar.

thumb_IMG_8869_1024

Dude went to work and I went with the engineers and in a sense went to work. We went a little farther to stop in a little town to have a beer. Their town ordinance was not to serve alcohol before noon on Sundays, so we rode on.

thumb_IMG_6212_1024

We hopped on a horribly weed overgrown and sinkhole plentiful canal for roughly 55 kilometers (35 miles) where I ran out of water and snacks conveniently away from stores and non-well water. We wound up splitting up at different paces after canal departure, yet still all trying to conclude this ride without passing out on the side/middle of a road/trail from heat exhaustion.

thumb_IMG_6213_1024

It is extremely uncomfortable to be out of water in the heat pedaling away with your mind medaling affray almost as if your life flashing before your sweaty eyes. I guess in my defense, I didn’t exactly know where the engineers were leading me. I could have been more prepared. I’m a sucka for cold water and on longer rides, I fill up my water bottle somewhat regularly with ice. I might start bringing two, but I normally know where I’m going.

thumb_IMG_6129_1024

The point of my story is to keep an open mind. You never truly learn anything unless you occasionally jump into something blind. Routines are great, but changing them up from time to time has benefits.

thumb_IMG_6210_1024

If a bartender gives you a homemade pickle and it is amazing, take a shot of that pickle juice!

Sunday Ride

And according to Untappd, I experienced my first ever Old Milwaukee. I do not recommend experiencing an Old Milwaukee.

thumb_IMG_6133_1024

I do condone experiencing this track of music via YouTube link:

Pals

Good people drink good beer.

Brussels Linguine

I’m celebrating my 1 year 99.8 % Vegan anniversary with dabbling in some Lifelight Vegetarian “sausages”. I’m still upset of finding these first on a weekend cycling trip only to be so disappointed of their use of egg whites. I’ve mentioned in the past of how I feel about my Veganism. Evolution of a mind and Evolution of my pallet has me madly in love with brussels sprouts. I dare anyone to venture into an adventure of reading my old blogs. Other than locating a corkscrew, this was AMAZING. Let’s go!

thumb_IMG_5803_1024

  • Slice “sausages”, sprouts, tempeh and roast

thumb_MYQS4620_1024

  • Olive oil, heated in pan
  • add minced Garlic, Carrot and super diced Onion
  • Add Balsamic Vinegar, cracked Pepper and CRP

thumb_CKIR7383_1024

  • Bring Chardonnay and Veggie Broth to a boil, simmer and reduce
  • Adding Earth Balance ‘butter’, dill and crumbled Tofu

thumb_IMG_5795_1024thumb_IMG_5792_1024thumb_IMG_5794_1024

  • Awesome NonGMOProjectVerified Sugar, add some
  • Cook Linguine al dente, not rinsing
  • After reduced, add roastedness and simmer
  • Add Instant Mashed Potatoes, stirring
  • Daiya ‘cream cheese’ to finish
  • Construct and garnish with Scallions

thumb_IMG_5812_1024thumb_IMG_5811_1024thumb_IMG_5810_1024thumb_IMG_5809_1024thumb_IMG_5799_1024thumb_IMG_5806_1024thumb_IMG_5808_1024

Solo Wednesday Night Ride

Last night was an incredible night for any kind of outside activities. The last couple of weeks here in Illinois have been pretty warm. I’ve been working hard, like usual, but a bit more this week and finally was able to enjoy an evening.

thumb_IMG_5455_1024

Unfortunately, it had to be a solo ride, but I still make those fun. So, I contemplated a ride route for a bit while getting my stuff together. I dabbled with some hills, highways, cows and a no trespassing sign or two. I enjoyed a couple of Beers and called it a night only to enjoy some pizza.

I’ve been a pizza addict since grade school since the rewarding personal pan pizzas. Evolution of my understanding has bettered my style of pizza. I don’t know how, but society wants men to “eat like men” and become unhealthy and overweight. I loved pepperoni as a kid and then when I could order and pay for my own food it was all about cramming the most different animal fleshes smothered with extra animal fluids baked all together like the death trap it is. Soon after starting my first job at Pizza Hut, I came across the deliciousness of the Veggie Lover pizza while in high school. I usually did put chicken or sausage on the Veggie pizza, of course.

thumb_IMG_5506_1024

My understanding of the world and life turned me into a Vegetarian in January of 2013 where cheese pizza was my go-to pizza, sometimes with awesome Veggies. And now my Evolved understanding has my relapsing options dwindling.

thumb_IMG_5475_1024

Last night, I tried two things and they were amazing. I ordered a mushroom pizza without cheese and brought it home to carefully roast Daiya on top.

thumb_HNUJ8601_1024thumb_IMG_5488_1024

I love Daiya. It is just expensive and I do not buy it too often. I also made a Vegan Pizza Burger. Literally, Vegan pizza between a toasted bun is extremely amazing and comforting! It was a great night. Here is a link to a video I took of some cows whom I constantly (in general, not these same guys) remind of my lifestyle:)

Cow Video

thumb_IMG_5504_1024

I spent my evening trying to catch the guy in pitch black riding ever so quickly in the grass and corn… I never could catch him.

thumb_IMG_5505_1024

Happy Thursday! Enjoy the little things in life and #RideOn.

thumb_IMG_5469_1024

Wednesday Century

-6.15.16-I planned to knock out the monthly Gran Fondo challenge from Strava on Wednesday, my day off this week. June’s Gran Fondo is 115 km. I’m gonna try and tackle 161 km to complete my third ever (imperial) century ride, being at least 100 miles. I made a route on Strava coming out to be 159km. I do not follow routes. Anything could happen at any time and change your ride. And some roads are too busy for me.

thumb_IMG_4664_1024

Materials List:

  • Socks
  • Cycling Shoes
  • Bib shorts
  • MTB shorts
  • Jersey
  • Cycling Cap
  • Helmet
  • iPhone
  • Garmin Edge 1000
  • Fuel: (2) Kind grain bars
  • Water bottle w/ Ice Water
  • Garmin Forerunner 235 Watch
  • Tool
  • Cycling Gloves
  • Money/ID
  • Key
  • Bicycle 🙂

thumb_IMG_4661_1024

-6.16.16-I rode my ass off yesterday. And had to go to work today, the commute wasn’t too bad today. The sunburn is the worst part.

Melting roads, simmering blood and briny sweat marinated skin roasting for hours. Melting asphalt and moist dense gravel were some obstacles yesterday.

#RideOn

#RideOn is the only thing summing up the motivation needed to just endure imperfect conditions and persevere on larger rides. I’m not sure there is such a thing as perfect riding conditions. Here in Illinois, we have wind, rain/snow/ice, warmth and cold.

thumb_JMUF9038_1024

Let insulated water bottle freeze 7/8 full of water for two days. Top it off. It lasted me 3+ hours in 80 degree weather. Red route was planned. Blue route was ridden.

 My Wednesday Century

thumb_IMG_4694_1024

#RideOn

thumb_IMG_4676_1024

Sicilian-style Pasta Salad

thumb_IMG_3715_1024

Sicilian-style Dressing ingredients:

  • Olive Oil, extra virgin
  • Balsamic Vinegar
  • Red Wine Vinegar
  • Sriracha, cock sauce
  • SeaSalt/Pepper/CRP/Oregano/Garlic, fresh halved

Boom. Let age for days, if possible.

thumb_IMG_3713_1024

Sicilian-style Pasta Salad ingredients:

  • Pasta, el dente and non-rinsed
  • Sicilian-style Dressing
  • Broccoli, chopped small and slightly blanched
  • Basil, freshly sliced
  • Olives (green and black), pitted and halved
  • Shallot, julienne sliced
  • Celery, sliced
  • Garbanzo Beans, cooked and cooled
  • Black Eyed Peas, cooked and cooled
  • Tofu, extra firmly crumbled

I hurried the cooling el dente pasta mixed well with stirred Sicilian-style Dressing and combined everything else.

Enjoy immediately or let sit for days.

I also brainstormed a Tofu marination idea showcasing the Tofu over the Sicilian-style Pasta Salad over a bed of Italian-style rice. I was not sober during this ordeal and I do need to remaster that idea.

I do know it was delicious!

thumb_IMG_3740_1024

A Time Science Shorty

I find it entertaining and fascinating attempting trackage of my usage of time over a certain span of time. And this span of time will be from myself falling asleep Friday night May 14th at 10:19 pm (central time) through when I fell asleep Wednesday morning at 12:48 am (central time), creating a span of 98 hours and 30 minutes or 5,910 minutes or 354,600 seconds. It is less than 1% of the time an entire century, but never the less, all time is important. Basically, the time that I am tracking is Saturday May 14th through Tuesday May 17th with a little overhang to even out the sleep.

thumb_IMG_3658_1024

Out of 98.5 H, I have 92% of my time documented with strong documentation. However, I still want to be above 95%. I will call a 92% over just short of 100 hours of time a C+. There are various excuses for error. I did take a few naps Sunday, recovering from a hellacious Saturday. It very well could be that my guessing estimations are off just a bit. I fully understand that it would be extremely hard to reach 100%, but 95+% is reachable.

Ride

I had a conversation, shortly last night, if Netflix or Hulu was better. My response was Apple Music. It pisses me off when it takes me 20 minutes to find something that I kind of want to watch. Little things like that need to be accounted for. I’m gonna have to concentrate on this for my annual June Time Science. Speaking of Apple Music, I have had my first beef (and being Vegan, I extremely despise beef) with Apple Music not having more than one song from an artist who I’d like to check out. YouTube has Apple Music beat on material from the instrumental Post-Rock Canadians, DestroyAllDreamers. It is disappointing that I may have to try and pirate their music in order to add it to playlists.

Orage

Wish I Was All Flames

Swirling Colours Sink

The Sky Was Glorious For a Moment

Ghost Guitar in the Shell

Perdre Est Une Question De Méthode

 Sunday was a day of recuperation and I took four naps and ate so much food. I’m not sure yet of how my Garmin watch does with naps. Naps may need to be documented manually for more accurate documentation. We will see.

I slept 11.2% of the 98.5 hours in a deep sleep of the entire 31% slept. And slept deeply 36% of the 30.3 hours. That averages over 7.5 hours per night and short of an average of 3 hours of deep sleep (or dleep?) per night. Not too bad, if you ask me. Although, last night’s dleep was only 24 freaking minutes. That is interesting. I rode my bike 8.5% of the total time for a distance of just over 175 (108 miles) km with an elevation gain of 826 (2,708 ft) meters. I walked 57.3 (35.6 miles) km over 56,234 steps. I walk much more when I am at work. I ride much more when I am not at work. The art of balance. I also eat more when I am not at work. I burned 30,521 calories over this span and probably only consumed a fraction of those calories burnt. I worked 22.43 hours in two days of the four days. I did not take a break either day.

thumb_IMG_3630_1024

#WorkHardPlayHarder

The rest of the time usually overlaps and needs to be documented better. I spent 1.25 hours shopping. I spent two hours of traveling by machine. My time in a kitchen and also eating was calculated at six hours and also needs better documentation. A total of five hours were totaled for Cubs/Socializing, aka drinking beer outside of the closet:) And the very last thing is a mixture of maintenance (shower/laundry/cleaning/dishes/fixing), internet/blogging and Netflix/movie. I tallied that sum to be 14.5 hours, but is probably more which would help fix the gap. Here is a better overview.

thumb_IMG_3651_1024

  • SLEEP – 30.3 h
  • BIKE TIME – 8.33 h
  • WORK – 22.43
  • TRAVEL – 2 h
  • GROCERY – 1.25 h
  • EAT KIT – 6 h
  • SOCIAL – 5 h
  • MIX – 14.5 h

Totaling 89.99 hours of a total of 98.5 hours. 92%. Check back in July for my June Time Science blog.

thumb_IMG_3646_1024