Quick and Easy: Red Pepper Chipotle Soup

Free those radicals baby!

Aging. Aging has been on my mind lately or rather aging skin and appearance has dominated my thoughts especially as I have the best seat in the house to watch my own farcical attempts to retain youth. I have become a great fan of Oil of Olay, scarves and low light and they do their best to make me believe this old gal is aging gracefully. In my quest for extended youth I have turned my thoughts to how to achieve this through food. Everyone knows or should know that a balanced diet, plenty of sleep (unaided if possible) and consistent exercise will help you to feel better, look better and live healthier. What I am interested in is which foods will help you to achieve this perfect balance. The short answer? Anti-oxidants to destroy free radicals and essential fatty acids to feed your skin and hair the good stuff. But what does that mean?

Taking it to the limit

I have always had an intense and keen interest in food nutrition and an intense and keen dislike for diets. I don't care who is flogging the diet - doctor, fitness guru or celebrity - these quick-fix, short-term Bandaid* solutions doom you and your health to failure. In great confidence they attempt to sell you a 'cure-all' for whatever ails you from losing weight to managing an illness to avoiding a particular food group to narrowing down your food choices to a particular food group for personal morality reasons. Vegan, Gluten-free (non-medicinal), Vegetarian, Paleo, Raw, Juicing - all proponents claim that their way is the right way to feed your body and improve your health. How can they all be right? Well, they're not, not really. 

Eating right for weight loss purposes requires a balance of need and want. We want tasty, rich, satisfying meals but we need vitamins, minerals, proteins and carbohydrates in appropriate numbers or our child-like glee at meal times will mean tears at the doctors and wails at the bathroom scale. We want to have fun but exercise needs discipline. We want to live in the here and now but we need to think of our future selves' welfare more often and take our aged selves more seriously. We live like we hate the person we will become and are doing our best to get a jab in now.

Following an eating plan tailored to those who suffer from Celiac's disease, irritable bowl disease or irritable bowl syndrome, Crohn's disease when you don't actually suffer from them puts your body into an imbalance.  We fall for these miracle food cures because the human body is a remarkable machine that will carry on until it can't. What that means is we are like clockworks with tiny parts, large parts - all working together to keep us going. It will work with minimal maintenance but eventually the gears will grind, teeth will snap off, metal will squeal and finally the clockworks will come to an abrupt stop.

For optimal health of the machine, we require this balance. For functioning and staying at work for about eight hours a day, doing minimal physical activity you can get by with an imbalanced diet… for a while anyway. Think of all the times you have had to forgo meals or eat inferior take-out because of scheduling. What happened before you next ate or ate properly? Feel lightheaded? Tired? Grumpy? Did you kill a small antelope with your bare hands on the way to the restaurant, as an appetizer? Multiply that by months, even years of eating without all the necessary nutrients in the necessary numbers per day and you get the picture. A healthy body, whether by design or luck, needs food from all the necessary groups containing all the necessary nutrients. An ill body needs a diet that will ease suffering and provide relief from the symptoms and/or flare-ups. It is by no means a perfect solution but it is an important one for the sufferers.

Eliminating a food group from your menu plans for moral reasons is purely a personal decision that is based upon a misguided perception of the human condition and an overestimation on our place in the food chain. In an effort not to be dismissive of Vegans and Vegetarians I will say that no one can gainsay their emotions and sensitivity to the natural world. Their hearts are in the right place. That said, I believe they are in error with their judgement. The common argument for one half seems to be for a belief in the sanctity of all life (in this case it seems to be the cute and cuddly mammals) so they refuse to eat anything with a face or benefit from their natural processes such as cheese and milk even though the bovines are still chewing the cud while this goes on. We are animals with our place in the food chain and quite frankly we aren't better than the other animals. We are exactly like the other animals and to me, refusing to take your place in the food chain causes a disassociation with what we are and where we stand on this planet. We are animals that now raise food instead of hunt it. The other half seems to veer between saving the planet from the flatulence emanating from over-produced livestock and a belief that we were not supposed to eat meat in the first place. Apparently red meat has the distinction of being a serial killer from which there is no escape. Yes, a bit of facetiousness but hey, wouldn't be me if I didn't indulge now and then.

As for the Paleo, Juicers and Raw dieters… can we say crystals, shamans and running naked in the forest chanting to the stars? Harsh yes, it would be if I was 100% serious (only sitting at 85%)  but what they are doing is harsher still. They are informing a vulnerable public of half truths and misconceptions and, dare I say it, phoney science. 

Simple truth is we are not Paleo-man, we have evolved to adapt to our surroundings like every other animal that has survived thus far. 

We cannot extract all beneficial nutrients from raw vegetables and fruits. Sometimes like in the case of today's recipe, certain foods require heat to extract all valuable nutrients. 

Juicing is a fantastic way to boost your morning breakfast routine or to have as a go-to snack but it isn't the best way to eat all the time. Fibre from eating the skins of the fruits and vegetables in their unprocessed form is important for our digestive systems - the Raw fooders have that right at least. Yes, you can make smoothies using the whole fruit but again, the breaking down of the insoluble fibre has already begun before it even hits your digestive system. By all means juice, just don't juice alone. In fact, these diets can be an interesting way to break up your routine once in a while, just like going meatless a few days a week can be a good thing. 

When it comes to the next best thing in the bookstores, keep in mind that common sense is the best editor/publisher of your own cookbook.  Do your research and get out the red editing pen! 

Seeing Red

This extremely simple and inexpensive soup is loaded with the good stuff. What you see above is essentially all the ingredients needed - add some broth and 10% cream and we're done.

So what's the good stuff Michelle? 

Well pipe down and I'll tell you.

The star of the show is the red peppers. While all the ingredients will do something lovely to your body, the red peppers are a powerhouse of nutrients that will blow your tasty buds and your mind. The rainbow of colours found in vegetables can give you a good idea of what good stuff resides within. Starting with green and ending in red, peppers at every stage offer a plethora of nutrients we need. Red peppers contain the highest amounts of Vitamin C as well as A,E and almost all of the B vitamin complex. Red vegetables also contain lycopene, the nutrient I referred to that multiplies when the foods such as tomatoes and red peppers are heated. This is due to the breaking down of the cell walls which allow more of the lycopene to be extracted. 

A can of crushed tomatoes will have more lycopene than a can of whole tomatoes which will have more than the equal amount of tomatoes just picked from the garden. 

This is directly attributed to the sterilization process of the industrial canning. After the cans are sealed, they are heated to a certain temperature. In the case of crushed tomatoes, they are heated twice - once in the crushing and again after the can is sealed.

Why is lycopene important? It is an anti-oxidant that has been linked with a decreased risk of many cancers including colon, stomach and cervical cancers and it can help lower the risk of heart disease.  For my immediate purposes, it also helps to prevent UV damage caused by the sun and is actually used in anti-aging creams.

The other but by no means lessor actors in the show are the allium family, the leeks and the garlic followed on stage by the benefits of orange oil and thyme. The allium family also offers a lot from the vitamin B complex as well as varying amounts of minerals, most notably manganese and a whopping amount of vitamin K in the leeks and an even greater whopping amount of vitamin B6 in the garlic. The thyme and the orange both contain vitamin C with a mega amount- 266% of our daily requirements - found in the thyme!

What you need to know

Knowing how to clean leeks efficiently is the only necessary technique you need to know. The best way is to cut of the dark green end about half an inch into the dark green. Then with the sharpest knife you feel comfortable with, insert the tip about 1/4 inch down from the root end all the way through to the other side and draw the knife through the leek as evenly as possible all the way down the length to the end. Under running water, gently separate the layers of the leek just enough to get the water in and wash well. Leeks grow in sand so they do tend to drag in some dirt as they grow and are trenched. Shake out well and then proceed to prep your leeks for your recipe.

Putting it all together

1 leek, washed, chopped                                                                                                       serves 4
2 garlic cloves, minced fine
1 jar 500ml (2 cups) roasted red peppers
4 chipotle in adobo, chopped
1.3L chicken broth (two tetra packs 3.75 cups each)
1 cup 10% cream
1 tsp orange zest
salt and pepper to taste

In a heavy-bottomed soup pot, sauté the leek and garlic. Cook until the leek softens; add peppers. Cook for 8 minutes. Add broth/stock; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. Process using a hand blender. Add the cream, salt and pepper to the pot as you reheat and add the zest to the bowls just before serving.

You can add fresh pasta, or dried that has been cooked already, to the soup. The first time I made this I added poached chicken and farfalle (butterfly/bowtie) noodles. This last time I made one half plain, pictured above, and one with leftover fresh linguine noodles, cut into one inch pieces.

Stay tuned to the next recipe where I "visit" Mexico for a tasty burger and get a recipe for the simplest mushroom soup anyone can make…like say a man with no kitchen experience could make it for his loved one on Valentine's day…just a thought :) 

Be safe. Be happy. Be well.



all photos and text ©michelle levasseur The Groaning Board 2014