by Rose Reisman

As shown on the Cooking With Rose TempoTV series

TexMex Chili

Serves 6

This is a great, lighter chili typically served in the Southwest. Using chicken rather than beef reduces the calories and fat. Dusting the chicken with flour maintains the moisture. Aged cheddar is the perfect accompaniment. Add diced avocado to the list of garnishes if you like.

1. Place the chicken and flour in a bowl and toss to coat. Lightly coat a nonstick saucepan with cooking spray, add 1 tsp of the vegetable oil and set over medium heat. Sauté the chicken for 5 minutes or until it is lightly browned on all sides, but do not cook through. Set aside.

2. Respray the same saucepan, add the remaining vegetable oil and set over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Stir in the corn and garlic and continue to cook and stir for 5 minutes or until the corn is browned.

3. Stir in the beans, tomato sauce, stock, chili powder, basil, oregano, jalapeño, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add the diced chicken and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until the chicken is just cooked through and the chili thickens. Serve the chili in bowls, and garnish with cilantro, cheese and sour cream.

per serving Calories 333 • Protein 27 g • Carbohydrates 33 g • Fiber 6 g • Total fat 11 g • Saturated fat 3.9 g • Cholesterol 68 mg • Sodium 550 mg • prep time 15 minutes • cook time 25 minutes • make ahead Prepare up to a day in advance. Reheat gently and garnish just before serving. • nutrition watch Use low-fat sour cream, which is obviously lower in fat and calories than regular sour cream—3% to 5% milk fat compared to 14%.

Meatball and egg noodle soup

Serves 6

MEATBALLS

SOUP

This is a great soup for children and teens. It’s a complete meal in a bowl. Try using ground chicken, turkey or pork instead of beef. (Add an extra 1 Tbsp of breadcrumbs if you’re using chicken or turkey)

1. To make the meatballs, combine the ground beef, breadcrumbs, barbecue sauce, egg, gar¬lic, basil and 2 Tbsp of the Parmesan cheese. Form into 1-inch meatballs (you should have enough for about 24 meatballs). Lightly coat a large, nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set over medium heat. Cook the meatballs for about 5 minutes, turning occasionally or until they are browned on all sides. Set aside.

2. To make the soup, lightly coat a large, nonstick pot with cooking spray add the oil and set over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for 5 minutes or until just softened and browned. Stir in the green pepper and carrots and cook for 3 minutes. Stir in the stock, tomato sauce, tomato paste, chili powder and browned meatballs. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes.

3. Stir in the egg noodles and simmer for 5 minutes or until the noodles are tender. Serve the soup in bowls, and garnish with remaining Parmesan cheese.

per serving Calories 187 • Protein 14 g • Carbohydrates 21 g • Fiber 3 g • Total fat 6.3 g • Saturated fat 1.7 g • Cholesterol 58 mg • Sodium 568 mg • prep time 20 minutes • cook time 28 minutes •

Related posts:

1. Potato corn chowder
2. Thai butternut squash and coconut soup
3. Wild Mushroom Puree Soup

by Rose Reisman

Potato corn chowder

Serves 4

Traditional corn chowder is usually prepared with excess cream and butter. My version uses evaporated milk, and you’ll be surprised at how creamy and rich the soup tastes. Charring the corn gives the soup a fresher flavor.

1. Lightly coat a nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set over medium heat. Sauté the corn for about 8 minutes, stirring often or just until lightly browned. Purée half of the corn in a small food processor. Combine the puréed corn with the whole corn in a small bowl and set aside.

2. Add the oil to a large, nonstick pot and set over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté for about 4 minutes. Add the red pepper and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add the potato, stock, chili sauce and corn mixture. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to low and simmer, covered, for about 15 minutes or until the potato is tender.

3. Whisk together the flour and milk in a small bowl and gradually add to the soup. Add the salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes or until slightly thickened and heated through. Serve in bowls, and garnish with parsley.

per serving Calories 211 • Protein 10 g • Carbohydrates 35 g • Fiber 3.9 g • Total fat 3.7 g • Saturated fat 0.9 g • Cholesterol 5 mg • Sodium 565 mg • prep time 15 minutes • cook time 30 minutes • make ahead Prepare up to a day in advance and reheat gently. • nutrition watch Corn is a good source of pantothenic acid. This B vitamin is necessary for the metabolism of carbohydrates, protein and lipids – great for when you are stressed.

Related posts:

1. Wild Mushroom Puree Soup
2. Thai butternut squash and coconut soup
3. TexMex Chili, Meatball & Egg Noodle Soup

Wild mushroom soup

by Rose Reisman

Serves 8

Everyone loves a delicious mushroom soup, but most are filled with cream and butter. This soup gets its flavor from mixed mushrooms and evaporated milk.

1. In a large, nonstick pot lightly coated with cooking spray add 1 tsp of the oil and the mush¬rooms. Sauté for 15 minutes on medium-high heat or until the mushrooms are no longer wet. Remove and save 1/2 cup for garnish. Add the remaining oil to the pan.

2. Add the onions and garlic and sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the carrots and sauté for 3 minutes. Add all but 2 cup of the cooked mushrooms and the stock, potato, rosemary, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes or until the potato is tender.

3. Purée in a food processor until smooth. Pour back into the saucepan and add the milk, Par¬mesan and the remaining cooked mushrooms and heat gently and serve.

per serving Calories 126 • Protein 8.9 g • Carbohydrates 15 g • Fiber 2.2 g • Total fat 3.8 g • Saturated fat 1.4 g • Cholesterol 8 mg • Sodium 560 mg • prep time 15 minutes • cook time 40 minutes • make ahead Prepare up to a day in advance and reheat gently. • nutrition watch Evaporated milk is high in calcium, but it is also higher in sugar and saturated fat than regular milk. You can use 2% or skim milk to save calories and fat.

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1. Potato corn chowder
2. Sweet Pea and Fennel Soup
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by Dayle Haddon

It was difficult to breathe when we landed in La Paz, the highest airport in the world at 12,000 feet. It was 6AM. We hadn’t slept all night. Dizzy, off balance, there was a tightness in our heads coupled with a continual low-grade headache that hit us as soon as we landed. We staggered getting our luggage, laughing about the high altitude fog we were in and handed our endless customs papers to some very severe agents. It was as if we’d drunk too much and were standing on a boat moving at sea…with waves! It was hard to concentrate. As a team we would struggle with altitude sickness throughout the trip.

The city of La Paz was spectacularly beautiful with snowcapped mountains extending as far as the eye could see. The views flying in over the Royal Range, a section of the Andes that runs down the west coast of South America were magnificent. The sun was rising just as we crested over hundreds of snow packed peaks, one after the other, some of them cupping calm shimmering green lakes in their craggy nooks. It was truly awesome. The first rays of morning light lit up the snow. Soft, puffy clouds hung over the highest peaks. They call these particular mountains the “Illimani” or three peaks because one mountain here has three tips. We had landed in Bolivia, the heart of the Andes, and the poorest country in South America.

I had come to Bolivia with a UNICEF team of four, and joined up with others on the ground to travel into the country. Our mission was to see programs UNICEF supports, find out what were the most immediate and pressing needs and determine how we could bring attention to those needs.

After a few days traveling through Bolivia, I realized this was a different kind of poverty from the in-your-face kind I’d experienced in Africa on other UNICEF trips. There were no makeshift tents housing highly contagious cholera patients as I’d seen in war torn Angola. Flies did not cover the sad faces of children as I’d witnessed in camps in Darfur. It was not the plight of displaced children begging for food at an IDP camp outside Goma, in the Congo, where you couldn’t offer what you had for fear of causing a riot. The needs in Bolivia were desperate but struck closer to home. It seemed more like what you might encounter in the poorest places in the US. However, as the days went on and we began to scratch beneath the surface, I understood that this was one of the more emotionally challenging trips I had ever experienced.

I was moved by little Melody, a six year old we met in the ‘Little City’, one of three hundred centers for abandoned children in the city of Cochabamba, in south central Bolivia. With her thick black eyelashes, cropped dark hair and ready sweet smile, we connected right away. She didn’t know where her mommy was and told us simply, “I lost my little brother.” We didn’t understand and asked about her back-story. Her mother had abandoned Melody in the streets when she was five, along with her two brothers, age six and two and half. She and her older brother left the little one for a few minutes to find some food. When they returned, he was gone. The little boy has never been found.

In the same center I noticed tiny Marina, a deaf-mute, who was abandoned at seven in the southern region of Bolivia and after years of wandering lost in the mountains, barely existing, she made her way to the ‘Little City”. One day a social worker happened to style her hair and that was a turning point. She has become obsessed with hairdressing and now does everyone’s hair at the center. Given her limitations, Marina is only able to socialize with the small children, yet remarkably, she doesn’t suffer from low self-esteem. She is determined. She is beginning to vocalize single syllables and dreams of becoming a professional hairdresser, and one day to be able to read and write.

Dayle Haddon continues with part 2 and part 3 in June

Related posts:

1. UNICEF trip to Bolivia 2
2. In Bolvia
3. Dayle Haddon: author, activist, L’Oréal spokesperson

“I like to think that I am helping some people to have a real sense of hope, and to shift their thinking about themselves and about the world.”

Lofty goals perhaps, but for sure Julia Moulden has global influence and is motivating legions of over 50s to rejig their lives and extend their reach. She’s a breath of fresh air: warm and welcoming with a captivating smile, but more importantly this internationally published author is helping seasoned individuals and organizations around the globe to find new – radical – ways to do good. McGraw-Hill, New York, published her most recent book boldly entitled We Are The New Radicals: A Manifesto for Reinventing Yourself and Saving the World. Her best-selling first book Green is Gold (published by Harper Business) was the first environmental guide for businesses, published in six countries.

“A New Radical is someone who takes skills acquired in their career and puts them to work on the world’s greatest challenges”, Julia told us. Asked about her own life after 50, Julia’s eyes shine.” When I turned 52 I realized I was really just getting started on this great adventure. I figured I have more than 30 productive years left in me, so combining my expertise with my dream of making a difference allowed me to create this new business – the New Radicals movement.”

“I wear many hats. My philosophy is that life is a long adventure, and I don’t want to do just one thing. I like to follow whatever appears before me each day.  I’m a writer for hire, I’ve been a speechwriter for 25 years, I consult with companies who want to foster more creative thinking, I’m on the speaker circuit, and I write a regular Huffington Post column about the New Radicals movement, and later I’ll be interviewing Jane Goodall. I also coach people who are stuck; this morning I was coaching someone in Nairobi, for example.”

The fastest growing sector of Julia’s business is working with corporations to introduce programs and initiatives that will add value to the company, increase profits, and contribute to the betterment of the world. As if this isn’t enough Julia was recently a sought-after expert to write a section of Barbara Grufferman’s book, The Best of Everything After 50. She also shared with us that she is currently pitching a reality-based TV series based on the New Radicals to a major network.

Of the woman herself, this busy yet surprisingly outdoorsy woman loves hiking and kayaking. Having raised three stepsons, she now relishes the time she spends with her ten-year old niece doing ‘girly’ things. Julia survived a messy divorce and paused, thinking her life was over (it wasn’t), before establishing her new business and setting out on her new adventure.

“I am just beginning, now, to tap into who I am and what I have to offer; what my capabilities are and where my interests may lead me. I had no idea back then that there was this whole field of work available to me, and that what you do can have such an impact on the world.”

If you are looking to make a change in your own life and want to help to change the world, then you are a New Radical. There are three categories. Activists seek out work which will let them serve others, or promote a cause. Entrepreneurs (that’s Julia) start new enterprises to address a problem, want to use their expertise to make the world a better place, and are also interested in making a profit. Innovators initiate change and innovation from within an organization – such as searching for environmentally sustainable ways of doing business.

Next for Julia? “In my next phase I hope to be painting and writing plays. Creative people need growth, and I consider speech writing  great preparation for writing a play,” she said. Watch this space.

Watch the short video, read the book … Julia will inspire you to continue to do something with your life, and help change the world. Tempo Toronto has autographed copies of “The New Radicals” to be won by two Members. See our contests page, in the Member Centre.

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With over 30 successful years in the music business, Dan Hill has enduring talent as a singer, songwriter, musician and author. He has more often than not stepped behind the curtain, allowing other chart-topping artists, such as Celine Dion, Britney Spears, Jully Black, Tina Turner, Rod Stewart, 98 Degrees, The Backstreet Boys, George Benson, Mark Wills, Reba McEntire and Alan Jackson, to sing his stirring ballads and pop hits.

Between Dan’s own hit singles, platinum albums, five Juno’s, a Grammy and countless ASCAP awards for most played songs over three decades, he has amassed over 100 million combined unit sales for all his songs. After a break in performing, Dan returned to the stage this year for a cross-country tour, and his outstanding new album Intimate launched March 9.

He penned the critically acclaimed book I Am My Father’s Son (a memoir of love and forgiveness) which traces Dan’s difficult and poignant relationship with his father, civil rights activist Daniel Grafton Hill. This came on the heels of a compelling cover story in Maclean’s, “Every Parent’s Nightmare“, which chronicled how Dan’s family was nearly destroyed by his son’s involvement in Toronto’s ‘thug culture’. Dan supports the Canadian Diabetes Association and dedicates time and support to World Vision.

Tempo Toronto went to find out more about what makes him tick, and a more genuine, empathetic individual would be hard to imagine.

“I’d want to be remembered for bringing people closer together, and helping them to connect with each other through my body of work as a singer, songwriter and author”, Dan Hill said. Read on to learn his insights.

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2. Ronnie Arato: published first novel at 65
3. The Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill

Former supermodel establishes ‘WomenOne’ charity to help women from developing countries

It’s virtually guaranteed … you have seen the face of Dayle Haddon.  She has been in the beauty and fashion industry for over 35 years.

A baby boomer, a stunning beauty, both inside and out, and now an active UNICEF Ambassador, Dayle Haddon is the only model to have had four major cosmetic contracts with Revlon, Max Factor, Estée Lauder, and L’Oréal – for which she has been spokesperson for over 15 years. Dayle has adorned the covers of dozens of magazines internationally, and has starred in many beauty campaigns. All this happened after her years as a young ballerina with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, when she danced with the Bolshoi and the Kirov ballet companies when in Canada. Discovered by model maven Eileen Ford, then by photographer Guy Bourdin her career went into orbit.

Well into her highly successful modeling career, Dayle realized that women over 40 were not being represented by the beauty and fashion industry. She felt she had an opportunity to change that perception from the inside. She has since been on the forefront of this now well-known age revolution and the result has been two bestselling books on inner and outer beauty, both translated into more than six languages – Ageless Beauty and The Five Principles of Ageless Living.

Dayle spoke recently with Tempo Toronto.

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1. In Bolivia: as UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador
2. UNICEF trip to Bolivia 2
3. In Bolvia

For a debut novel, this 562 page (hardcover) work is an amazing feat. No wonder it took the author a decade or more to write it.

A dog lover you don’t have to be, but an appreciation of our furry domesticated friends helps a little with sympathy and understanding of some of the characters in the book. Although 10 of 12 Book Club members “didn’t like the ending, not at all” (how does anyone make a ‘climax’ of a book last for 60 pages? … oh yes, by repeating the elements of the ending scene over and over. This reader thought the author had just run out of steam and couldn’t think of how to end the book.)

David Wroblewski has an amazing skill with language, often to the point where he over-describes every little point, in parts. In many areas the language is so rich that you are transported into another world. In others, you just wish he’d stop going on so, and get on with the story. Book Club determined that he needed a stronger editor, and this book could have been cut back by at least one third without ruining the character development, and to hold the readers’ interest – just to keep it moving along at a more consistent pace.

Some character development was clumsy, leaving an implausible impression – yes, fake. Others were brilliantly captivating, including the faithful Almondine. Yes, an American novel this is for sure, but a clever insight into the world of dog breeding and training, and living life in rural America on a dog farm. It lacks, thankfully, sentimentality.

In summary, it’s a good read but not a can’t-put-it-down one. The kind of book you would enjoy (mostly) but wouldn’t be compelled to hand over to your best friend to read. It’s a great cottage by the lake pastime.

… The scope of this book, its psychological insight and lyrical mastery, make it one of the best novels of the year, and a perfect, comforting joy of a book for summer.
— O Magazine

The most enchanting debut novel of the summer… this is a great, big, mesmerizing read, audaciously envisioned as classic Americana.… Pick up this book and expect to feel very, very reluctant to put it down.
— Janet Maslin, New York Times

Nothing quite compares to my experience of reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. This debut…. is one of the most stunning, elegant books I have ever read…. what can deservedly be called a great American novel.
— Lisa Jennifer Selzman, Houston Chronicle

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Most days find Ronnie Arato at her keyboard from mid-morning to late afternoon. She continues to research and write novels for children: a passion that came to her late in her writing career when she made a shift from freelance corporate writing.

Inspirational action: Published first novel at 65

Now 68, she had “Ice Cream Town”, her first children’s novel, published three years ago. She has published five books since she was 60, including two reference works earlier on, with one more novel due out this Fall, and three others in the works. Her book “Courage and Compassion” was Canadian Living’s Editor’s Pick in the Spring, It seems that Ronnie has hit her stride.

It wasn’t always this way. Born in New York and growing up in Los Angeles, to then become an elementary teacher, somewhere along the way she got married, had children, and moved to Toronto. She didn’t get back to teaching after the children came along, but instead started a writing career doing corporate publicity and public relations, as well as some journalism and writing and editing for not-for-profit organizations.

But, she had always wanted to get back to working with and writing for children. “This is what I had always wanted to do. I love dealing with children, I love the research, and I really enjoy learning new things,” said Ronnie. “So at 60 I thought to myself if I don’t do this now, then when will I get around to it?”

When she got serious she did a lot of networking with already published children’s writers, and joined a writers group. She attended industry events in Toronto where she got to know the publishers in person. Great strategy! When she submitted a proposal, the publishers already knew who she was, and that had to help.

“Then it was a lot of really hard work,” Ronnie explained. “I rewrote ‘Ice Cream Town’ three times, for example. Then the publishers took months to get back to me. You really have to have the patience of Jobe to do this.”

Though there isn’t a fortune to be made in writing for children, Ronnie does this because she loves it. While she still does some corporate work, she is concentrating on her new-found career as a children’s author, including going to schools to do readings, which keeps her in touch with her grades 5 to 7 audience.

“My writing introduces children to people, cultures and ideas they may not have been exposed to before. Many children in Canada don’t know about our own history or our heroes. I am most comfortable writing historical books, both fiction and non-fiction, and children enjoy learning how children lived a century ago. My book that comes out in the Fall, “On a Canadian Day”, has nine stories of children at pivotal times in Canadian history, such as a young girl coming through Pier 21 as a new immigrant.”

“By the time I get to the age of 90, I will become an overnight success!”, she joked.

Related posts:

1. The Book of Negroes: Lawrence Hill
2. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
3. Julia Moulden: Radical Woman, Radical Thinker