I think your chicken and ribs will be fine as described......and for a carb I would do a make ahead risotto. I like the thoughts of a roasted red pepper and sundried tomato risotto....but you might prefer something else. I would make the rissoto as you usually do....frying the rice, adding wine then the peppers and tomatoes and chicken broth a little at a time, stirring like crazy until it's almost done....still a bit crunchy. Then pack the rice, more chicken broth and your freshly grated parm and while the chicken and ribs are heating Heat and stir more broth top with the parm....dress your prepared salad, pull the bread out that's warming in the oven and you have dinner!!

I agree that your meat plans sound fine. Chicken Marbella reheats beautifully, and even if you stop the ribs before they're table ready, they'll be cooked through, so you won't have to worry about raw meat storage. The thing is, the chicken will probably take a good 45 minutes to reheat in a normal oven (not high altitude). It'll help if your driver can take it out of the cooler when you're half an hour out, and put it in a non-cold pan.

For the vegetarian, quiche travels well. You can rewarm it on a shelf under the chicken. Alternatives include frittata, blintzes, quinoa, bean stew. All easy to cook ahead, transport and rewarm.

Potatoes are always a good gluten free option, and something substantial for the vegetarian. Small potatoes, like fingerlings, are great roasted. If you do them to just done--maybe forty minutes--where you might have left them in another ten minutes, but they're cooked through, you can warm them up in a single layer (sheet pan) at 350° F. for 10 minutes. I just did that with some rainbow ones a few days back and they were delicious.

Linda's idea of risotto sounds good too. If you make it with vegetable broth or water, the vegetarian can eat it. Risotto is great rewarmed. Maybe you could make some grilled tofu or saitan, or other veg protein to go with the risotto for the vegetarian's main.

I can't think about your grilled ribs without thinking coleslaw. You can cut up the veg at home sprinkle with a little lemon juice, put it in an air tight zipper back and pack it in a paper bag or similar to insulate it a little and it shouldn't need to be in the cooler. If your dressing isn't pasteurized, you can put just that in the cooler. Pour the dressing in the bag on site, seal, shake, and pour into the serving bowl (or serve from the bag!). Kale chips are a great snack. Nothing to weigh riders down, and great mouth feel without demanding a bunch of chewing from tired people. You can also roast vegetables in about the time it takes to heat the chicken, if you have sufficient oven space. After a hard day out of doors, hot vegetables can be very welcome and soothing. Clean and cut ahead of time, lay them out, drizzle with a little oil and seasoning and pop them in.

A cut fruit salad might also be very welcome. Not having to peel, bite, etc., and with a variety of tastes rather than one whole apple or peach helps the appetites of tired people.

Have fun!!

Great idea about prepping the veggies in advance and then roasting when you get there. Easy peasy. Takes about 45 min. I'd have a crudite tray and maybe some rye crisp or pita chips and hummus, great for snacking. Coleslaw is great and you can add kale and whatever else to make it more "gourmet" if you want. I eat some version of coleslaw practically every week and now they are selling all kinds of versions in bags at the store. Here's a link to a "Smitten Kitchen" kale, quinoa and sliced almond salad I make all the time--great for gluten free and low carbers.http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2014/03/kale-and-quinoa-salad-with-ricotta-salata/ I always use feta instead of ricotta salata. You can make this with cabbage too. My favorite way to make coleslaw though, is to buy it already shredded in a bag and then toss with some creamy poppyseed dressing and some toasted sunflowers. I always get raves.

John, beverages, beverages....

Ahem. Are all of you in fighting shape? The forecast I saw yesterday - and I do understand not always reliable this many days ahead of time, makes me wonder if you are then also riding back? Upper 90's on Friday, into the 100's by Sunday.

This has me thinking about the upcoming 4th weekend. I like to prep ahead. This past Saturday we did our first smoker/grilling. We did a spatchcocked chicken and ribs. I made Marbella black beans. I don't really call it that but i like the flavorful ingredient combination. Capers, garlic, olives, prunes, vinegar, maple syrup. I added wild thyme, chives and rhubarb to the pot and re-heated on the grill in a cast iron saucepan. Got a little smokey, nice. I cut the prunes into quarters. Last year i made it with white beans and roasted red pepper. Great with the chicken like the traditional Marbella but vegetarians can have it as well.

The market on the way to the farm had really nice kale. Made a fresh kale salad sliced in thin strips and massaged with evoo and lemon. Lots of sugar snaps in the garden so i added those sliced in half.

Crudite' is a good starter for an arrival snack while re-heating your Marbella and ribs. An easy prep ahead in a zip-lock as ipink mentioned.

And an easy prep ahead is a tray of roasted new potatoes and some veg that is seasonal now at the markets. Could be par-boiled and chilled. Roast with the re-heating of the meats. (what is it with potatoes right now? The market had dozens of varieties and they are all wonderful. I picked a few different ones and mixed them. tiny ones i left whole and cut the others to a similar size...)

My rib dipping sauce is rhubarb garlic thyme and chive with some of the spice rub and lots of vinegar. And maple syrup for the sweet.

We always try and include our night before meal. Always have thought that our favorite wild mushroom risotto would make good rice balls for a next day party. Add some fresh peas and roll in panko. But i'm usually bogged down in prep and multi-tasking.

Thanks everyone. I'm leaning toward roasting new potatoes and veggies with plenty of olive oil, truffle salt, and rosemary. Seems the lowest fuss way to go. I've been busy and preoccupied, details in a forthcoming "OT" post, so quick and easy are important!

I learned that one of the people is making salad, a spinach and strawberry combo, which is apparently a favorite with this crowd. So I don't need to deal with that.

morz8, the weather forecast is indeed unwelcoming. 40 miles is a piece of cake; 3800 feet climbing is not too bad; doing both at 99 F is not so good. Hopefully we will leave early, before the heat. The rest of the group is staying at the cabin all weekend, I am leaving on Saturday and riding solo back to Portland, because I've volunteered to help at a very large bike ride that takes place Saturday night. The return will be largely downhill, so shouldn't take long.

The rib sauce will be a quasi Asian tangy-sweet sauce. A closely guarded recipe, unless your eyesight is good enough to read the ingredients list on the bottle . . . Yes, I am really going for quick and easy here.

The mains sound good. Because the Marbella is saucy, I wouldn't do risotto (no chicken broth for vegetarians) with it but maybe a pilaf, which would be easy to do at the last minute (no precooking needed). You can buy precooked packets of organic brown rice at TJ's (it's great), if you think you need precooked, and then add your other ingredients. You could precook roasted veggies for the vegetarians and heat them on the grill to go over the pilaf. Maybe some grilled paneer to go with?
My son is riding the Race to the Sun on Maui this week..10,000 ft climb in 36 miles in 5.5 hr time limit. I hope he doesn't die. You either.

I made a quinoa tabbouleh last week and we just devoured it. So good and easy. That would make a great side to take along.

Carefully disguised....
The whole thing sounds awful. Can't you just say you're going to skip out on half the ride because you have to cook?

Yeah! Have the person driving your cooler follow the same route and pick you up along the way!

Grilled paneer sounds like a great idea for a vegetarian protein.

You do know, this is why god made cold fried chicken, coleslaw, potato or macaroni salad, watermelon and brownies with ice cream don't you? And after that ride is the time to pig out on the calories!

You're tempting me to simply swing by KFC after we get to the cabin . . .

After that peddle I would consider it...hide the box, re heat on absorbent something and serve with a premade orzo salad and some roasted veggies.....and a big mug of beer!

I recently had friends over and wanted everything cooked ahead so I grilled up chicken in a lemon bbq sauce and served it at room temp with a quinoa pesto. I made lentil salad ahead which I served at room temp. And I made a green bean and fennel salad ahead of time which I served at room temp. I had crusty italian bread and a dipping sauce. So it all worked out very well. And when it's hot out, having a room temp meal might be most welcome.

John, I'm thinking of you. I just saw on tv that the temps in Portland is going to be 102 today!!!

YIKES!! Do check in and let us know that you're safe and well hydrated!

Quick report.

Meal was a big hit. But, after the day we'd had, so was bed.

Ride started at Welches OR and ended at Government Camp OR, which is about 15 miles east along Hwy 26 if you are sensible, but instead we went in the other direction, north into the National Forest on logging roads, and proceeded to ride all the way around Mount Hood, a sort of clockwise circuit, and reach Government Camp from the opposite side.

The 42 miles of twisting roads through the forest were gorgeous, with remarkable views, thankfully much shade, generally decent road surface, and we saw two cars in 8 hours. I enjoyed seeing Mount Hood from the back side, a view that not that many people see. But there was also no potable water, no cellphone coverage, several miles of gravel road, and what seemed like endless climbing. There were short steep descents but you couldn't really bomb down them, because the road did have the occasional monster hole or collapsed area, which might be hidden in a patch of deep shadow. And it was 102F up there, according to someone's fancy bike computer.

I ran out of water about fifteen miles from the first civilization in Parkdale, got dehydrated, and despite drinking a ton of water and Gatorade at the little grocery store there, my thighs and calves started cramping up on the next stretch, which was a 10 mile climb to reach Hwy 35. I was in my very lowest gear, trying to turn the pedals with as little force as possible, feeling the muscles get tight. Sometimes I had charley horses that I had to pedal through. A couple times I had to get off the bike and sit down until my muscles stopped seizing up.

We got to Hwy 35 with another 20 miles of climbing ahead. This is a pretty desolate two lane highway, with no cellphone coverage for most of the way and, on Saturday around 6 pm, maybe one car every 5 or 10 minutes. Several miles down the highway, one of our group had her rear tire blow out. Not the tube, but the tire casing itself. It had been sliced open on a gravel stretch, back in the forest. Our patch held for 50 miles but now the tire had a pencil sized hole worn in the casing, Mary Jean's bike was unrideable, and the sun was getting low.

The other three rode ahead to find a cellphone signal and call AAA to retrieve her, and also call her husband to see if he was close enough to come get her. Rick had ferried our clothes and food to the condo that morning, then returned to Portland, due to return late that night. I stayed with Mary Jean, for entirely selfish motives - I figured that the AAA driver who picked her up would surely give me a ride too.

With nothing to do, we tried patching the tire casing again, rode half a mile, blew out the re-patch, and started walking, wondering how many hours the others would have to ride to find cell coverage and how busy AAA was on a Saturday night and when the sun would set.

It was getting dusk now. A pickup truck approached and slowed, the driver peered at us, and drove on. Several minutes later the truck returned from the other direction, and he was one of the local AAA drivers, off duty, looking for us on his way home. We arrived at the cabin right when our companions rode up. They had ridden to an area with a single cellphone "bar" about forty minutes after leaving us, spent another 15 minutes trying to explain the situation to AAA over a garbled connection, and the closest AAA truck on duty was busy in Sandy, over an hour away.

We'd have been out there after dark. Our driver told us that the area where we had been walking was a sort of local Bermuda Triangle, populated with bear and cougar, where people disappeared mysteriously. Most recently, a father and his adult son, hiking, had never been seen again. The thing is, all the locals agree, a cougar wouldn't take on two adult men.

So, as you can see, the dinner that night didn't have to be good to be good, if you see what I mean. But it was good too. No-one was awake enough for the swimming pool or hot tub.

The next morning I left the others - they were staying in the condo all weekend - and rode the 15 miles down Hwy 26 to my car in Welches. That was a great descent, curvy two lane highway, all downhill, good pavement. Get in a low tuck and you can hit 60 mph on a road like that, in spots you can actually keep up with cars. I didn't, because I was carrying a bag of clothes over my shoulder.

I was dehydrated for a day afterwards and my legs still feel heavy. I have a list of precautions to take if I ever ride in the backcountry again. And I made some new friends. So it was a nice day after all.

Wow!!...Glad it turned out OK....but that was scary stuff.

At least you were in the forest (it sounds gorgeous except for the temperature--I've only see the part of Hood that everybody sees), but the water shortage is scary! I'm so glad you're home safe with only minor damage. Great to make new friends.

What a story. I installed a freezer and my back is out of whack today. You climbed a mountain!

And yet another story indicating why I am going to cancel my AAA membership. For all the years I have had it, I have never gotten any real help from them. Last year alone they offered me nothing during two car breakdown events. Wondering if there is a good alternative, one that takes into account modern ways of living and playing. I used to follow in my pickup when we did rides like that with the campers at the summer camp I worked at. What an adventure though! Carpe diem, right?!! Just glad we are not reading about you or hearing about your disappearance on the news this week.

AAA has saved my booty several times...one time towing my car 70 miles. Wouldn't be without them.