I guess I haven’t been traveling much lately . So here’s
another travel blog entry that’s about cooking rather than about travel,
because I have mostly been home and making lots of food. This entry covers my creations
over about a three-month period that coincides with the official summer months
of 2016, from just before I left for the Azores in late June to mid-September.
With the exception of about two weeks in early August at my bro’s second home
in Vermont, I spent most of that time in New Jersey.

So how does a funemployed dude spend his time when he’s not
traveling. Well, besides cooking a lot of it has been at the gym. Over the
three months of food pictures here I’ve made a serious effort to get much stronger
and in better physical shape. My success in it has really been largely about
consistency – no significant distractions or interruptions from training have
made continuous progress possible to the point where I’m probably about the
strongest I’ve ever been.

A concentration on muscle building is supported by a
particular high-protein diet, but luckily my metabolism and calorie expenditure
have risen enough that I haven’t needed to feel too restricted on what I can
eat over that period . I can even cheat a little with high-carb dishes like
pasta, jambalaya, and potatoes once in a while without having to worry about
getting chubbier.

The upside of the summer months is that it’s warm and I can
take my short off a lot. The downsides are that it’s hot and humid and
unpleasant for working out at my inadequately ventilated gym, as well as it
being quite unpleasant to cook when it’s warm. Looking at my pictures, though,
I’m amazed at how much I did cook between June and September.

One escape from the heat of the stove I discovered and
mastered this summer was the fine art of Gazpacho, the traditional uncooked
pureed raw-vegetable soup of the Andalusia region of southern Spain. The
traditional version includes tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, onion, garlic, olive
oil, and some flavorings marinated together for a while and then processed in a
blender or food processor. Since these ingredients are mostly water, you
surprisingly don’t have to add any liquid to it for a delicious and refreshing
cold soup . There are numerous alternative versions of it, though, and I tried
six or seven besides the traditional one over the summer – including Strawberry
Gazpacho, Cucumber-Mint-Watermelon Gazpacho, Peach and Red Pepper Gazpacho,
Pineapple-Cucumber Gazpacho, and Gazpacho Verde (green vegetables). The fruit
versions were especially delicious and would probably have made good desserts
as well as appetizers.

The Peach Gazpacho was part of my summer New Jersey theme.
The say, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. So I figure if life events
put you in New Jersey for the summer, have a peachfest. New Jersey is actually
a significant peach producer and they local ones are often very good, so for me
that meant salads with peaches, chicken with peaches, and a peach soufflé.

I don’t usually think of regular hot soups as hot weather
food, so I’m wondering what possessed me to make several pots of it over the
summer. Well, I’m sure it’s just that I really like soup, and once you get all
the ingredients in the pot, with a soup you really don’t have to spend much
time standing over the stove . My favorite was Bermuda Seafood Chowder, which
gets flavored with some rum. Maybe I just made that so I could treat myself to
the rest of the rum I didn’t use in the recipe.

Salad is probably the quintessential summer food that
doesn’t require adding heat to prepare, so I made quite a few of those. In my
opinion, though, salads actually fit only peripherally into a bodybuilding
diet. That’s because the volume of raw greens is quite small relative to what you’d
get in a cooked vegetable dish like spinach and most of the calories come from
fatty dressings or flavorful toppings like cheese. The exception, of course, is
heavy meaty salads like the ones I made with buffalo chicken breast, but the
greens on those are more of a side.

Back when I was growing up I always heard that “real men
don’t eat quiche”, the title of a humorous early 1980s book about emasculated
modern man. Normally filled with whole eggs, cream, cheese, and often bacon,
the only real men who’d eat standard quiche are those aiming to looking like
New Jersey governor Chris Christie . So when I found a recipe called “Real Man
Quiche” using mostly egg whites, reduced-fat swiss cheese, ham, and low-fat
turkey sausage, I determined it was one of the rare quiches that fit in with my
dietary goals. And yes, it was delicious, even without all the saturated fat
and cholesterol of the standard versions.

Pies and baking are normally mostly out-of-bounds when
trying to eat healthy. There are some exceptions, though. Using phyllo dough
reduces the quantity of crust in pies, and olive oil can be substituted for
butter between the thin layers of dough. Substituting non-fat feta cheese for
the normal version, I created a very healthy Spanakopita (Greek spinach pie) that
I thought tasted as good as the higher fat versions I’ve had in restaurants.

I’m generally not much of a fan of eggplant because of its
rather slimy texture and the way it soaks up cooking fat like a sponge.
However, I am open to trying alternative preparations of it that might be more
to my liking, including a Spanish recipe called Berenjenas Al-Andalus . Slices
of eggplant are essentially roasted in the oven with just a small brushing of
olive oil. They’re then topped with a mixture of goat cheese, tahini, honey,
lemon, and almonds for an appetizer served cold. This was one of the best
eggplant preparations I’ve ever had.

I happen to love Italian food (who doesn’t), including the
tomato sauce-based Campanian version of it Americans know best. Italian food is
especially heavy on empty starches like pasta, though, usually combined with
flavorful high-fat sauces or toppings. But I’m having such a craving for
lasagna! So I found a low-carb noodle-free version substituting thin slices of
zucchini for the pasta. To be honest, I think this might better be called a
casserole than a lasagna, but it was absolutely delicious, and relatively
healthy too using very lean ground beef and low-fat versions of ricotta and
mozzarella cheeses.  

Sometimes, though, you just have to have a cheat dish when
you’re craving some carbs . One of those spicy dishes that satisfies the
cravings in Jambalaya. Although a mostly rice dish, I try to make mine with
lots of lean meats like chicken breast, ham, low-fat turkey sausage, and shrimp
so it’s still a quite proteinaceous meal.

And then there’s pasta, usually pure starch with a delicious
but fat-laden topping, often a total diet buster. I broke down once this summer
with a craving for Linguine alle Vongole (Linguine with Clams), at least with a
fairly healthy wine sauce and lots of clams.

I didn’t go all out on an full ethnic theme too often except
once with French food – Burgundy prok chops with sauce Piquante with chopped
pickles and spicy Dijon mustard, white truffle parmesan mashed potatoes to use
up some truffle paste I brought back from Italy with me last year, Ratatouille,
Lentils Provencale, and baked tomatoes with parmesan.

Another foray into ethnic cuisine with meats was Porco
Alentejano, a Portuguese dish of pork, clams, and potatoes . It seems that
traditionally the pork cubes and potato cubes are deep-fried separately first
before being combined with a wine sauce and the clams for final cooking. I
modified the preparation in favor of sautéing, though, to avoid the extra fat
of deep frying.

And then there’s Chankonabe, Japanese sumo wrestler stew,
something I’ve frequently dreamed about making when I get seriously into weight
training. Japanese food tends to be heavy on starch like rice and noodles and
vegetables with protein sources eaten very sparingly, which is not very
conducive to bulking up muscularly for sumo wrestling. And sumos aren’t all
very fat; many look like wrestlers or football players with a lot of meat on
their bones. So what do they eat? Chankonabe. My recipe for Chankonabe included
ground chicken breast chicken meatballs flavored with miso, ginger, and other
spices, fresh fish (I used cod), shrimp, udon noodles, and several vegetables
like mushrooms, carrots, and bok choy all cooked together in a flavorful miso
broth and topped with hard boiled eggs . Yummy, although I’m not sure it’s any
more conducive to bulking up than other protein-heavy dishes with chicken and
seafood.

Chicken breast probably makes up my number one protein
source, but can get very boring if eaten plain. Thus, I’ve been making a lot of
stews and baked dishes with it, usually substituting just breast meat for the
fattier whole chickens or juicier leg parts called for in recipes. As far as
I’m concerned the dishes like Coq au Vin and Chicken Marbella come out well
anyway. Other traditional dishes like Chicken Piccata and Chicken Marsala I
modify slightly to use less fat in the cooking and substitute olive oil where
butter is called for. The flavor and browning properties of olive oil aren’t as
rich as butter, but when I’m cooking only for myself I’m more concerned about
what’s healthy than what will impress flavorwise.

And for pure protein without added cooking fat, it’s
possible to bake those chicken breasts with fruit or with a hot sauce . Chicken
breasts baked smothered in Buffalo hot sauce are great cold sliced on top of a
salad. When I use chicken breasts to make a stock for soup, I sometimes then
shred them with two forks into a pulled chicken mash which I then combine with
a flavorful barbecue or hot sauce. This would be great on sandwiches, but I
usually just eat it as such accompanied by a few vegetables.

Since I’ve mostly been trying to build up muscle rather than
lose fat over the last several months, I haven’t tried to cut my calories as
much with a vegetable-centered diet. I still try to get my veggies in for
vitamins and fiber, though, and have made a number of flavorful vegetable
combination dishes. Yes, sometimes I get lazy and just steam some broccoli, but
I’d rather mix a few together with other ingredients like ginger, chilies,
garlic, sun dried tomatoes, or parmesan cheese. Vegetables shouldn’t have to be
boring.

Fish and seafood remains some of my favorite stuff to cook
since there’s such variation in it and so many things you can do with it . When
I’m working out and eating a lot, though, I tend to make it more of a treat
since it’s a much more expensive source of protein per gram than chicken and
turkey breast or other lean meats. Fish with
substantial fat like salmon and mackerel and swordfish supposedly provide some
benefits in terms of Omega-3 fatty acids that leaner ones do not. My
preparations were mostly some classical European recipes like Asturian Salmon a
la Riberena (with cider sauce), Swordfish Calabrese (a bit like piccata),
Bacalao a la Vizcaina (cod with potatoes and peppers), Truites Provencale
(trout with capers and lemon sauce), Gambas al Ajillo (Andalusian shrimp with
garlic and paprika), and Sole Fillets with Oysters and Champagne Cream Sauce.
OK, I’ll admit the last one is a bit of a cheat dish with the cream sauce, but
oh so good!

Desserts haven’t figured much into my cooking recently
because they’re usually laden with sugar and starch and fat. I’ll make them
when I have guests who I don’t mind fattening up, but it’s a different story if
I’m going to be eating almost my entire creation myself . My mom’s caregiver
sometimes helps me out a little, but you get the point. I only made two
desserts that were relatively low in the bad stuff, one a peach soufflé and the
other a pear and ginger Clafoutis. Souffles
use relatively little sugar and flour and are mostly puffed up egg white so
fairly light and low in calories. Meanwhile, Clafoutis is usually heavy on fruit
and usually characterized as a batter pancake consisting of a high ratio of
milk and eggs to flour and sugar. Clafoutis traditionally uses cherries, but I
found the pear and ginger variety to be as delicious as any cherry versions of
it I’ve made in the past.

Bon Appetit!