I was looking through Allrecipes.com and came across a recipe for "Balsamic Chicken with White Beans and Spinach" which peaked my interest. After looking through the ingredients, I realized not everyone may know how to make an ok recipe into an awesome recipe. A great way to improve your eating habits is to buy individual ingredients, ie no Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. Know exactly what you are eating.
The recipe as is calls for the following ingredients:
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 (4 ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
- 1 (10.75 ounce) can Campbell's® Condensed Golden Mushroom Soup
- 1 (15 ounce) can white kidney beans (cannellini), rinsed and drained
- 1 (7 ounce) bag fresh baby spinach
Not too bad, actually. Olive oil is good, though since it is used to brown the chicken I would rather use butter (pure lard without any hydrogenated oils, ghee, even bacon fat) which is better for cooking. Extra virgin olive oil is best to be added after a food is cooked.
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, good if you choose organic pasture raised chicken (fresh from a local farm if you can). Why? Because they are actually better for you. Pastured raised chickens have an ideal Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio and contain beta carotene and CLA. A great article about pasture raised chicken can be found here: http://almostfit.com/2008/08/13/demystifying-chicken-labels-from-organic-to-all-natural/
Next, garlic, great! I might actually add more because you can never have too much garlic, mmmm. Balsamic vinegar, thumbs up.
Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, big thumbs down. In fact, it's the one thing in this recipe that makes it a bad meal. It fails on many accounts. I actually stopped buying it a long time ago simply to save money by making it myself. Little did I know at the time that I was making a good health choice. Here is the list of what you will find in their "Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom Soup": water, mushrooms, modified food starch, cream, corn starch, vegetable oil (corn, cottonseed or partially hydrogenated soy oil), wheat flour, sugar, salt, whey protein concentrate, potassium chloride, spice extracts, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylite, maltodextrin, dehydrated garlic, mushroom powder and calcium lactate.
How many of those ingredients do you actually recognize as real food? Not many. The fact that it's labeled "Healthy Request" makes me laugh. Did you know cream of mushroom soup is extremely easy to make, is way cheaper, way healthier and tastes so much better than the canned stuff? My recipe for it is here: Cream of Whatever Soup It can be made gluten free or gluten full.
Ok, on to the next ingredient, 1 can white kidney beans. Not bad. I do prefer to soak and cook my own beans but I also realize that takes planning and time. If you are going to used the canned stuff, check the label and make sure the only ingredients are beans, water and maybe salt.
Lastly, 1 bag of fresh baby spinach. Awesome, they ask for fresh. Of course to make it even better, go organic.
Now to give it a go. James and the boys I already know won't like it because they don't like anything with vinegar. Weirdos. I love balsamic vinegar.
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