Chicken and Rice Salad

This is on our meal plan for this week. It is easy, yummy, and filling. Plus I love these type of salad as the entire meal recipes for summer. Give it a try...

Chicken & Rice Salad

Mix Together:
2 T brown sugar
1 tsp salt
3 T vegetable oil
1 T apple cider vinegar

Pour Over:
4 c cooked rice
4 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
1 can crushed pineapple

Let sit several hours and add:
1 c celery
½ c red pepper
¼ c green pepper
1 can mandarin oranges
¾ c cashew halves
½ c light mayo

Mix and serve.

Red Lentil Soup

Okay, I know, I have done WAY too little to make this a useful recipe site.

But, I am going to try to do better. Beginning now.

My goal is to share one recipe that I have tried each week.

This is one I tried last summer, but I think it improved on my latest effort.

Lentils are fabulous. They are so healthy, a great source of protein and cook up really fast. So, try this out. Next week I plan to work on a recipe that I put together before for Greek lentil salad. So, we will see how that goes.

I served this soup with pita bread and strawberries for a well-rounded meal. Let me know how you enjoy it.

Saute in 1 tsp of olive oil:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped

When the onion is soft, add:
3 stalks of celery, chopped
1 c carrots, chopped
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Cook the above for a couple of minutes and then add:
1 pound red lentils
6 c water
2 cubes of chicken bullion (or for a vegetarian option you could substitute vegetable stock for a couple of cups of water)

Cook for about 20 minutes until the lentils and vegetable are soft.
You can serve as is, or if you want a creamier soup (that also hides the vegetables) pour it into the blender and puree the entire soup before serving, as I did.

Top with chopped, fresh spinach and dill-infused Greek yogurt. (I used about a tsp of fresh dill in about a cup of Greek yogurt -- you could also use traditional plain yogurt.)