perfect 'load up before a race' dinner!

my hubby chris enjoys being on his bike. roadbike. mountainbike. whatever.

they are all expensive.
here is him last year at the end of his ride at lotoja. he didnt make it to the end, he was 20 miles short. but really, riding a bike from logan utah to jackson hole wy (lots of up hills) and only making it 180 miles isnt bad! and it was his first try! i was proud of him!
(and, yes, he is doing it again this year)
personally, i think he is nuts.
oh, yea, what i was talking about...
i made this for dinner last week and chris said that not only was it tasty (duh-i made it) but it really gave him some energy the next day on his 60 mile ride to work. it is loaded with carbs, protein and fats.
i bet lance would have won the tour this year if he would have eaten this.
and not crashed so much.
oh-again...the food. here is the recipe before i start talking about the fact that this year I am getting a 'team' shirt for chris's lotoja event!
(i will post photos when i get it!)
6 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup ricotta cheese (NO YOU CANNOT USE COTTAGE CHEESE! -that was for utahans who seem to think they are interchangeable. they are not.)
1/4 cup parmesean cheese
3 cups pasta
2 cups of gravy
(heat oven to 400)
mix eggs, milk, cheeses a sprinkle of salt and pepper. stir in COOKED pasta and a little chopped basil.
cover a 10" skillet in a little olive oil and pour pasta mess in. cook over medium heat for 2 minutes (until the sides start to set up). put in oven for 10-12 minutes.
when done, let sit for 5 minutes before serving. pour a little gravy over (if you want-but you WILL want!) the pasta/egg dish.
ps-i would give credit to where i found this but i have no idea. it was some magazine, but i have seen it in cook books too. and the one that i have is on an index card.

worse. day. ever.

back in june, chris rode in a 'tour de cure' for the american diabetes association. he isnt passionate about diabetes. he just wanted to race.
so did my studly friend kristin and her hubby steve. the only way to properly understand how aweful this race was is to quote kristin's blog...
After we finished I sobbed for about 20 minutes. My face burned, my eyes were stinging and I was hammered. I was beyond words. There was a line for food. A long line. REALLY? I am supposed to wait in a line for food? NO THANKS. What kind of race makes people wait in a crazy long line for food? Diabetes really does suck.
there was 55 mph winds, funnel clouds, rain and it all ended happily at a truck stop shower. (that wouldnt sound so odd if you knew my friend kristin)

what kind of wife would i be if i didnt celebrate the fact that my hubby didnt throw his bike into a ditch from anger?
i found his number tag (lucky 721) and framed it in a frame i picked up from savers and spray painted it black.
and i put it in our mud room, right next to great grandpa's lucky horse shoe.

even chris has a few good recipes

this is me and my sweetie chris.

i do almost all of the cooking at home. but once in awhile,

he really steps up! case in point...chili verde.

for those of you who haven’t read this blog much, i am a proud italian american! we grew up eating mostly italian dishes, with hamburgers and raman noodles thrown in now and then.

when i moved to utah 18 years ago, i found that they were all eating mexican.

wtfreak.

i didn’t eat any, and kept eating what i was comfortable eating...
cinnabuns.
(and no-i was like a size 2 then! not nearly what some one who ate 1200 calories of
sugar and dough 2 or 3 times a day should look like!)

finally when we got married, there were some compromises. i made meatballs and didn’t make polenta.
he made tacos and i tried them.
and i really didn’t mind them much! they were tasty!

wait-this isn’t italian food and it is GOOD?! i almost didn’t believe it!
he snuck in little pieces of mexican food here and there...salsa, cheese nachos, fish tacos....
one day he tried chili verde. and although the color scares me, i do enjoy me some of that!
chris made this on super bowl sunday (sniff...poor peyton).


1 1/2 pounds tomatillos (i had NO IDEA WHAT THESE WERE! i do now)
5 cloves of garlic, not pealed
2 jalapenos, seeds and ribs removed, chopped
2 anaheim chilies
1 bunch cilantro (didn’t know what this spice was until i met chris. now i would marry it!)
4 pounds pork shoulder (aka pork butt) cut into 1 to 2" cubes
salt
ground pepper
olive oil
2 yellow onions
3 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
2T chopped oregano
2 1/2 chicken stock
pinch of ground cloves

remove papery husk from tomatillos and rinse well. cut in half and place cut side down, along with 5 unpeeled garlic cloves and peppers on a foil lined baking sheet. place under a broiler 5-7 minutes. remove
when skins are lightly blackened. remove from oven and let cool enough to handle.

place tomatillos (including skins) into food processor. removed the now roasted garlic cloves from their skins and add them. add the peppers and cilantro in and pulse until all ingredients are finely shopped and mixed.

season the pork cubes with salt and pepper. heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat and brown the chunks.

keep a tablespoon of the fat, and discard the rest. place onions and other garlic into the same skillet and cook for about 5 minutes.

get large soup pot and add the onion mixture, pork and green stuff. throw in the chicken stock and add a pinch of ground cloves.

bring to boil and then reduce to a slight simmer. then let cook for 2-3 hours.

chris likes it when he gets to put beans with this, but other like rice.
i like neither. just a tortilla and sour cream and i'm good.