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

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The Anti-Diet Lifestyle

This Saturday May 19th was Food Revolution Day, a worthy cause started and spurred on by Jamie Oliver. I have thrown myself into the concept as I agree with the idea of eating right and teaching others about eating right. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to do that. No matter your thoughts on Jamie, the message of the Food Revolution is one that is timely, important and necessary.


Mom, any more H_t P_ckets?
Humans, being what they are, have made convenience foods-  frozen, dried pre-made foods- extremely popular. Some are high in sodium and flavour enhancing chemicals so that we actually crave inferior macaroni and cheese and turn down the real gooey, cheesy, crunchy homemade dish! Many of us are 'brainwashed' for lack of a better word into living a dependent lifestyle for the sake of convenience. What I mean by that is if you are hungry and out of the home? Then take-out is your answer. Getting take-out? Well then one of the big three drive-thrus is your answer. We spare no thought as to why we make these decisions because a lot of us have been raised in an atmosphere that embraced the new and convenient without the necessary consideration as to health benefits or harm.

We enter the grocery store and fall prey to the same temptations there as when driving down restaurant row no matter what good intentions we started out with when we made our grocery list. Just walk down the frozen foods aisle and you will see a meal for everyday of the week. While frozen vegetables can be just as nutritious as grabbing something from the produce department, many frozen convenience dinners are so high in fats, sodium and enhancing chemicals that  you are better off eating the box. As to the hamburger helper and powdered sauces aisle...don't go there. Take my word for it-you're not missing anything. We won't even discuss wieners, bologna or the chicken nuggets in the yellow box.


Keep that up, you'll go blind
There are many of us who have a genuine desire to eat and be healthier but are scared off by the fanatics who do their best to convince us that only through superhuman effort and sacrifice will we ever meet our goals. We research, buy cookbooks by the dozen, subscribe to at least two magazine newsletters about food and have a radar always on the go picking up tidbits of conversations of strangers around us. We read labels, compare sodium levels and wonder if living forever is worth eating plain yogurt. Blech.  I have a lot of cookbooks myself...hang on, I'll go count....Yep, 132 is a lot of books about food and not a one is a diet cookbook. Have I read them all? Almost. Well over half resemble porcupines there are so many post-its sticking out. I may not have read all of them cover to cover but I flip through all as soon as I get them. I can't help it. I do not obsess about calories, or what number value is assigned to that particular food or worry about weighing every morsel to pass my dainty lips. The most I do is calculate the carbs (simple mainly) as they are my personal weight gainers. 


We want to be healthier and there are plenty of people willing to tell us how to achieve that and just as many so-called solutions. So many of us tie ourselves up in knots trying to decide who to believe in the anti-food wars. There are simply too many cookbook authors trying to make money off of the concerns of your body, too many doctors with agendas and kick backs,  too many gov't groups trying to force feed you a line...Who to believe? 


Uphill both ways, in the snow
I say, look to the past. Before the advent of convenience foods, BigFood, and their industrial farm suppliers we actually knew how to eat without sitting down with a calculator tallying up the calories and fibre intake. We were quite able to remain slim and healthy without thinking about it, obsessing about it and tracking down web articles to find out how others manage to be healthy and lived to blog about it. They somehow got through their day without staring down at a scale, peeping through their toes and lamenting the fact they weigh more than a six month old baby.


Most of our predecessors came from a culture that defined shopping as something you did once or twice per month for the things you could not make or grow yourself. You travelled into town and visited the one or two stores (more and you were citified) and you then picked out your items. Sometimes you had time to chat about what was new in...(choose your own topic) or to glance quickly through a catalogue for things you wanted but needed ordering and a patient wait of six weeks.


 Whether done in a horse and cart or an old jalopy, our fore parents made of the shopping trip something special and something rare enough to remain special. Ladies would dress in Sunday best and the menfolk were made to put on their cleaner pair of pants and the children sported shirts with sleeves and slicked back rooster tails. Pride showed through-pride in self, family, community and the products of the toil of their bare hands. You were going into town because you made some money and you could afford to spend some. They nodded at passers-by that were familiar faces from market day where one of your grandmothers sold her surplus in-season vegetables and homemade jams put up that spring.


The values that are obtained and fostered by living off the land are ones found in the recipes that our ancestors lovingly used and re-used over a lifetime. Is it any wonder that at one time recipe collections were deemed heirlooms and were viciously fought over? 


That foam in the corner of my mouth is from my latte
If you are ever fortunate enough to peruse a family heirloom cookbook, try to find the word diet any where in  it. I was going to include a list of popular fad diets here but we'd be here all night. The only time the word diet should be used is pertaining to a medically prescribed food regime. It should never be used in conjunction with a weight loss goal, in normal circumstances. Trying to lose weight by restrictions, rules or other complications will only lead to ultimate failure in reaching your goals, no matter how modest they may be. 


Every day it seems that there is a new and improved way to fail at losing weight and becoming healthier. Yes, there will be some temporary successes simply by virtue of the fact we all fall into differing categories of weight gain. Some of us gain in the belly and benefit from one type of balanced food regime while others gain in their posterior and will not benefit from the same regime. Eventually however, because the necessary food learning was not accomplished, failure will result. 


Bottom Line
If you educate yourself on how food works for you, which work best for what you want to gain (or lose!), how our food is grown or is raised, while learning to ignore the latest fads then you will have a greater chance of developing a better food relationship which will always lead to a healthier food lifestyle.

by Chelle Elle
all images from Google Images

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