ginger baked beans

• 6 cans of navy beans, drained and rinsed
• 4 strips of bacon
• 2 large vidalia onions, chopped fine
• 5 tablespoons molasses
• 5 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2/3 cup of ketchup
• 2 tablespoons bbq sauce
• adobo
• ginger ale

In a frying pan over medium heat cook bacon until just done, remove and blot with paper towels. In same skillet cook onion for 3-5 minutes or until translucent. Add cooked bacon and onion, along with all your other ingredients to the crock pot, cook on low for 6-8 hours. Adjust seasonings to taste.

The dish: People often think of their crock pot as being purely an appliance for cold winter nights, when the days are short and no one wants to leave home once they arrive there. Visions of stews and roasts, with a warm house filled with tantalizing aromas pop into people's heads and they feel that during the summer the crock pot should sit on the floor of the closet their parka hangs in. The closet that you rarely think of and never open in between Memorial and Labor day. All of this is true, but the versatile slow cooker can be just as handy in the warmer months as well. We try to mountain bike every chance we get and there is no better feeling than coming home after a long day of hitting the trails and having a warm dinner ready to eat, or at least a hearty accompaniment waiting to be chowed down. All of this and our kitchen doesn't get heated up one single degree. So dig it out and keep it on the ready. I showed you a German potato salad a while back, and there's few things that scream out "summer" better than baked beans, so forget turning on the oven and plan to go low and slow all summer long.

gateway bean salad

• 2 cans red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 cans chickpeas (or garbanzos for those of you that kill time in the Goya aisle), drained and rinsed
• green onions, chopped fine
• white wine vinegar
• olive oil
• juice of 1/2 lemon

Whisk together equal parts oil and vinegar with lemon juice, pour over remaining ingredients and toss to coat. Add sugar and salt to taste if you really want to.

The dish: We are officially into the time of year where the weather is great and the trails are muddy for those of us that love to rip through the woods on bicycles. Every chance Kim and I get to be on the bikes we seize it, even if it means pushing a few tasks to the back burner (read: blog not updated so often). This year we're doing an okay juggling job, but three years ago we did NOTHING other than work and ride. We pretty much ate out every night and had leftovers for lunch, leaving the red room as nothing other than a transfer station for coffee cups and doggy bags. Our favorite haunt was the Gateway diner, an oasis of cold air conditioning and cheap, plentiful food. Each huge dinner comes with soup and salad bar, which means that you take home more food than you eat, even after being famished from a long day of pedaling through the greatest trails in Hudson valley. The Gateway salad bar has many high points; stuffed grape leaves, carrot salad, hard boiled eggs, and their famous (to Kim and I at least) kidney bean and chickpea salad. Filling up on bean salad meant getting plenty of protein and carbs for next day's ride, and there was always a ride the next day. This year we are not riding quite as often (but plenty), and we're still doing our best to eat at home, so refueling with our rendition of this beloved salad feels as great as you would expect it to.