Kale Couscous White Bean Chicken Soup

Today was an absolutely beautiful day here in the Carolina's.  For dinner, we needed a healthy and quick meal that would satisfy hungry kids from playing all afternoon in the crisp weather.  I made a big batch of roasted chicken earlier this week and while I used it in this soup, along with chicken broth, this can be omitted to make a vegan soup.  As a vegan soup, I am sure this will be exactly what soup is to your heart and soul.

The recipe I followed started off from this link.  I had to at least double this recipe and even doing that, my family of five have left me no leftovers.  I added in two bay leaves but otherwise followed the recipe as instructed.  Even my children enjoyed the soup and for this in itself, I am thankful that they don't squeal when they see kale in their soup or watch me put spinach in their smoothies.

Toast some bread and enjoy this by the spoonful,

Enriching Ego

Nutritional Details:

335 Calories

27 Carbs

11g Fat

30g Protein

860mg Sodium (eek)

4g Sugar

Cranberry Avocado Almond Spinach Salad with Roasted Chicken, Feta Cheese and Orange Poppy Seed Vinaigrette

Looking through Pinterest for dinner recipes after my one week clean eating detox, I found a few spinach salad recipes.  What I have been looking for are ingredients that I would normally have in the fridge/pantry, agreeable palate for everyone in the family, wallet friendly and just plain awesome tasting.

I started off with a roasted chicken using the Big Batch Roasted Chicken recipe.  The recommendation here is to take out the chicken, place it on the roasting pan, season it and leave it out for thirty minutes so the meat can absorb some of the simple flavors as a marinade.  Once the kids came home for school, I roasted the chicken then turned off the oven while we went to dance class so that when I came home, I could remove the skin off the chicken and the chicken off the bone.

Next, I called my kitchen helpers into the room and began making the salad.  My helpers were aged 5 and 6 so sharing was very important as was them not using a knife. I was sure to keep a set of thongs nearby so they could easily toss the toppings into the already prepared, pre-cut spinach.  The girls laughed and giggled about avocado.  Then feta cheese then they asked each other what was on their list of favorites:  food, color(s), drink etc etc.  The conversation could go on for hours.

We followed this recipe and I know adaptations would work well.  It's a great salad to mix in fruit like mandarin oranges or blueberries, make vegan by removing the cheese and chicken as I felt the cheese was unnecessary.  The Cranberry Avocado Almond Spinach Salad with Roasted Chicken, Feta Cheese was a grand slam, even with my young kitchen helps.  The AWESOME Orange Poppy Seed Vinaigrette should be bottled, it's that good!  Phenomenal.  Fresh.  Perfecto!

Hope you enjoy,

Enriching Ego

Estimated Nutritional Value:

Calories: 370 Carbs: 19 Fat: 22 Protein: 26 Sodium: 281 Sugar: 12

(provided by:  Food Diary)

Big Batch Roasted Chicken, Buzz feed Clean Eating Challenge

Go ahead, drool.  If you are at all a meat eater, this image will make your palms sweat.  The challenge calls for you to roast a large batch of bone in, skin on chicken.  Once it's all done roasting, you take the meat off the bones and the skin off of the chicken.  Having both of those during roasting, helps create a great flavor.  

The recipe is super simple, here it is.  I have used this for my family by reheating in a cast iron skillet with a little more oil and leaving the skin on and they really appreciated the flavor while I appreciated its convenience.  Go.  Roast.