A Cycle Tour Recipe

Equipment

One Trangia Cooker, with Meths Burner

(Metholated Spirits is not a common name in other parts of the world, so a lot of fun can be had finding the right word for each country and putting up with all the jokes about not drinking it - wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

Our Trangia has two sauspans and a lid which, flipped over, becomes a frying pan.

Ingredients

• One cob of roadside corn (ensure the farmer is not in the adjoining field). If not available, substitute and small tin of whole corn or peas. 

•  One, slightly tart, roadside apple (take care your bike does not fall into a ditch while gathering) core, remove grubs and dice.
• Two plump tomatoes - halved and quartered (Not available singly in Aldi, Netto or Lidyl Supermarkets - note these have very cheap goods, but everything is packaged to the hilt and there are no baskets supplied for those who travel by bicycles and by necessity, have  small orders)
• 1/2 a Zucchini - diced
• One small Onion - diced
•  Approx 10 slices of thin Bacon - this bacon is shaved, not sliced

• 2 small handfuls of Pasta (Polish, Czech or German)
• Four Tablespoons cooking oil, (whatever is available in 500ml bottles) this meal was Olive Oil.
• 1/2 to 1 Vegetable Stock Cube (depending on how much salt needs to be replaced after a hot days ride and the sausage has oodles of salt as well, so take care here)
• 1 Tablespoon Tomato Paste
• 3/4 mug of water or juice from Peas or Corn can (or if you have bought a $1.50 bottle of undrinkable wine, one or two mugs of this)

Method.

• In one saucepan, heat oil, toss in onion and cook till soft then add the Tomato, Zuchini and Apple, stir often to prevent sticking. When tomatoes have reduced down, add additional liquid and stock cube. Simmer for five minutes, then set aside.

• Bring two mugs of water to boil in the other saucepan, add pasta and corn cob, boil gently for five or six minutes. Check corn cob for tenderness (it could be a stock-feed variety and need more time) - drain and serve along with the bacon and vegetable sauce.
• Cook Bacon gently in pan on top of corn and pasta.

YUMMY.

Observations.

There is a very strong connection to pigs in the countries we have ridden through - also a very strong smell of the same animal. Yesterday we visited a lovely town where every second house had a farmyard piggery, I suspect the population of pigs would have made it a city, while the population of humans was around 1000.

They are celebrated in various ways

Seen Floating down the Donau River on a Sunday.

And passing through the Woods