Yooper food of da gods

Yooper is what they call someone from Michigan's Upper Penninsula. Their regional food is a pasty. Pronounced "pass-tee". We realized that we couldn't leave the U.P. without trying one of these, so we found a shop that Matt told us was actually rated as the best pasty shop in da U.P. The pasty was good. My trip to the U.P. is complete.

Eating PRO on the go, parts IV, V, and VI

Cookin' skier style!

I'm falling a little behind here... Day four, we had pasta and sauce. Somewhat generic, but skier fodder the night before a long race. Two other girls came over, and they brought some enchiladas they had made, which were a fantastic appetizer. The pasta we cooked in the microwave, about half a box at a time in a big bowl of water. We used small zitis, which were not quite as good as the Annie's shells, but might have been better with some stirring. For the sauce, we microwaved some onions and mushrooms and then threw that in the crockpot with some canned sauce. No pictures, but it worked.

Day five


Chili! We threw a bunch of cans of stuff into the crockpot before leaving for the race today.

2 large cans of tomato chunks (put these in last, until the chili is at a consistency that you like)
1 can black beans
1 can red beans
1 can pinto beans
1 can corn kernels
1/2 white onion
1/2 yellow, red, or orange pepper
1C chopped mushrooms
1/4C chili powder
2 tbs hot sauce

We let that do its thing in the crockpot until we got back, about 6-8 hours. Then we ate it with the leftover corn tortillas from taco night, and some shredded cheese on top. Served 7 hungry skiers (probably 8-9 normal people).

Day Six

We'll call this random night. We ran out of food and wandered into the grocery store, and walked out with some sweet potatoes, bananas, cheese curds, salad dressing, smoked salmon, and two loaves of artisan bread. That fed 7 people for $30, and we hit all the colors of the rainbow when we added a salad topped with beets and chickpeas.

Lunches, snacks, and other munchies


Such a pretty sandwich! hummus, beets, cucumbers, and bean sprouts. The hummus was pretty goopy for this use, but it was delicious.


Annie's Mac and Cheese: an absolute staple.


Vanilla yogurt, walnuts, and banana. Perfect post race food.

Also, lots of Wheat Thins, Cheezits, sesame sticks, dried fruit, fig newtons, nature valley granola bars, carrots and hummus, and soy nuts. Yum!

So, I guess the point of these posts is that you can indeed eat well while living in a hotel room, for a reasonable price. We ended up feeding 6-7 people (sometimes some people went out) for 7 nights for $170. Not too shabby!

Eating PRO on the go, part III

Moroccan couscous:

(This is not my recipe, Jess made this, so I might get it wrong).

Ingredients
2-3C dry couscous
equal parts water
1-2C chopped dried apricots
1/2C chopped fresh mint
1/2C slivered almonds
1 boullion cube
1 can chickpeas

Heat the water in the microwave. Add the boullion cube and stir it around. Pour it over the couscous (which is sitting conveniently in the crockpot). Add everything else, stir it around, and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. stir it around again and eat. Served 6.

Eating PRO on the go, part II

No pictures, but:

TACO NIGHT!!

We had to feed the rest of the NENSA crew last night, and its easy to extend the taco night theme to feed more people, so we ran with it. First, we made some kick-ass guacamole (recipe below) in the one big bowl that we brought. We cooked some rice in the crockpot, which took about two hours. Pretty much everything else was in cans. I wish I had a picture of the guac.

Guacamole:
3 avocados
1 tomato, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2C cilantro, chopped
1/4C lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Put everything in a bowl, and mush up the avocados with a fork. Make sure its all evenly mixed, and enjoy either with chips or in a taco.

For the tacos, we had small corn tortilla shells (which actually weren't that great, as they broke at the bottom too easily and then got messy. Inside of them, we had refried beans (canned), black beans (canned), chopped fresh tomatoes, chopped fresh orange pepper, rice, pre-shredded cheese, salsa, black olives, and some beanless chili since the boys wanted meat. Good stuff!