Recipe for success, sometimes: Tri-Pasta

Tomorrow will be our second triathlon of the season, and I was preparing our customary pre-race dinner just now, I realized that that is one thing I've never shared with anyone: our absolutely delicious Tri-Pasta.

I first made this dish when I was a poor college student on a hot summer evening who realized she needed some veggies. Never in all of my library-computer-lab-filled days would I have imagined that this recipe would become the one and only thing my husband (husband? What husband? Me? Marry? Hah!) would eat prior to major races (I'm sorry? Did you just say races? As in sporting events? Really? Hah!). Yeah, I'm telling you, I had no idea.

Anyway, for all of you dying for a cold, yet healthy dish during these three-digit-days, or for those of you who have been on the lookout for a perfect pre-race meal, here is my first (and probably only) blog-recipe:

Ingredients:
A box of tri-colored pasta (Just 'cause it looks prettier. You can go all health and get whole wheat pasta too, but prior to a race, we like to carboload. A lot).
A cucumber (English or American doesn't matter)
Two/three tomatoes
A block of feta cheese
Can of whole corn
Bacon
Oil
Vinegar
Various herbs and spices
A large bowl (with lid preferably).

Boil the pasta, strain it and then let it cool off. Make sure that if you put it in the fridge, you cover it, or else it will harden too much.
Bake the bacon (or if you're like me, and you tend to burn regular bacon, buy a microwave-ready package and stick in the microwave).
Let the bacon cool and then cut it into tiny squares, then put it in the bowl.
Strain the corn and put about 3/4 of a 16oz (448gr) can in the bowl as well
Cut up the cucumber into very small pieces. You can leave the rind on or not, it's entirely up to you. If you must know, however, we leave it on, 'cause husband-dear thinks it's healthier. And he's probably right. Put cucumber in bowl.
Cut up the tomato into (you guessed it) small pieces. Try to include only the "meaty" part, since if you include a lot of the gooey (for lack of a better word) tomato parts, it's going to leak all over everything else. Add tomato to bowl.
Cut up the feta into squares, or triangles, or whatever shape works for you. It's hard to tell you how much to use; we buy an 8 oz block (227gr) and use about 2/3 of it. The feta goes in the bowl too.

Mix up all the ingredients. This is the point where you check if each ingredient is equally "represented" so to speak. You don't want a whole lot of corn and very little cucumber, for instance (can you tell I'm not really an exact science cook?).

Add the pasta. Mix the whole thing up again.

This is when it's time to make the dressing, and get a little creative (yes, even more). I just add 2 parts of olive oil, 1 part vinegar, and then mix in salt, pepper, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, basil, parsley, oregano, dill weed, and a hint of sugar. However, husband-dear has been known to just add Balsamic vinaigrette, and that works too.

Add the dressing to the salad, and you have got yourself one great example of a pre-race meal. And please don't feel like you have to call it tri-pasta either. We just started calling it that last year (husband-dear thought it was the funniest thing, as we eat it before tri's, and use tri-pasta. Yes, I married a dork. But a loveable one).

Anyway - Enjoy!