Give Me the Healthy Food, Please!

By Tamara J. Lesnar
Staff Writer

So I just finished my family reunion down at Pickerel Lake, South Dakota. About forty people showed up for the reunion. It was two days of endless eating.

As Stapleton from Charlotte’s Web would say, “A veritable smorgasbord.” I actually look and feel like a stuffed sausage; skinny on the ends and round and fat in the middle.

Speaking of sausage, we had hot dogs, Italian sausage, Polish sausage, two kinds of bratwurst and hamburger. Everything you would expect from a BBQ. Let’s not forget potato salad and of course all the calorie laden bars. The food was good but I can feel my arteries hardening and hear my heart struggling to beat. Okay, it’s not all that bad.

The food was tasty and if it wasn’t, I would not have gone back for fifths. People never stopped eating. Every time I looked at the picnic tables filled with food, they were surrounded by people.

Later that day, my sister (who came all the way from California) and I made some London broil and marinated chicken breast. We also made a vegetable-laden pasta salad and a spinach salad with strawberries and blueberries. This meal of course only lasted a few minutes as everyone scarfed down the food. My poor husband, who spent the whole time cutting the steak, was left out in the cold. Everyone took the steak and chicken before he could even get a piece. Praise was heard throughout the picnic about how good the steak and chicken were and the salads were a big success.

We also made homemade guacamole and pico de gallo in large stainless steel bowls.

After eating so much food, just call me Ms. Creosote, my body said, “please stop.” Although, everything we ate had nutritional value, there was an
overabundance of foodstuff that just adds to health problems like high cholesterol and diabetes. So now I am ready to taking my eating down a notch and eat a little lighter and definitely healthier.

It is summer and that means the temperatures are going to be in the eighties and nineties. Typically when it gets hot, many people do not want to eat heavy meals and who wants to slave in a hot kitchen making them anyway? I’ve found over the years that a nice soup and salad combination satisfies my dietary needs without making me feel heavy. I know a lot of you are saying, “soup in the summer?” Yes, soup in the summer.

Many of you have gardens and your fresh vegetables are great for making all kinds of soup: carrot, celery, asparagus, and cucumber. Oh, let’s not forget the one abundant fruit that everyone plants, tomato.

The one thing to remember about soups is that they can also be prepared cold.

Soups have such great nutritional value. Water, the most abundant ingredient in soups, is important for hydrating the cells in the body to keep muscle and nerves working properly and it does this partly by maintaining the proper concentrations of sodium, potassium, calcium and other elements of the body. If your soup is made with stock (not broth), your body will get the necessary marrow, calcium, phosphorous, and protein that help to maintain healthy bones, and physiological functions. If you add vegetables and fruit to your soups, your body gets important complex carbohydrates, vitamins and antioxidants that feed the brain and help keep you looking young. Salads add fiber and more vitamins to your diet.

I would like to share with you some of my healthier recipes. I’m including three for now and will share more throughout the summer. As a chef,
I like to try new recipes all the time. These three are some of my favorites and I hope that they will become yours too.

Chicken Jalapeno Soup
Serves 6

6.5 cups of Chicken stock
2 Chicken breast cut in ¼ in. thick stripes (make bite size length)
1 Jalapeno chili from a can. Rinse the Jalapeno leaving no vinegar on the pepper.
1 avocado
Chopped cilantro for garnish

Heat your stock in a larger pan and bring to a boil. (I like to use a wok; I think they work better.) Add your sliced chicken and jalapeno. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook the jalapeno and chicken for 5 minutes.

While the soup is cooking, clean, peel and cut your avocado into bite-size chunks.  After the soup is done cooking, use a slotted spoon to remove the jalapeno.

Note: Leaving the jalapeno in the soup longer will make it spicier.

For serving, divide the chicken among the bowls, add avocado and then pour the soup over. Top with cilantro.

Rajas (strips)
Makes about 2 ½ cups

6 medium-large poblano peppers
1 large white onion
1 tbsp of olive oil
3 cloves of garlic chopped
½ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp dries thyme
½ tsp salt (salt to taste; not all salt needs to be used)
Package of corn tortillas

If you have a grill or gas flame, roast the poblanos until the skin blisters and turns black on all sides; about 5-6 minutes. Make sure that you keep turning the peppers.

If you don’t have either of those, you can roast the peppers in the broiler. Place the peppers on a sheet pan and set about 4 inches from the broiler. Keep turning until all sides are blistered and black, about 10-15 min.

Once the poblanos are done roasting, stick them in a large bowl, cover them with a towel and let sit for about 5 minutes. Using plastic gloves, remove the skins by rubbing or peeling. Cut out the core and discard the seeds (seeds contribute to the spiciness of peppers.)

Cut the peppers in ¼ inch width slices. Cut the onion in half and then cut ¼ in thick slices.

In a 10” skillet, heat the 1 tbsp of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until brown but slightly crunchy; stir regularly to
avoid burning. Add the garlic and herbs. Stir for about 1 min. Mix in the peppers and cook for another minute.

Season with salt. Serve in hot corn tortillas. We like to cook the tortillas on a hot cast-iron skillet. This recipe can be made with other peppers.

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