Turkey and Wild Rice Soup & Spinach Salad with Mushrooms



All recipes are part of the Healthy Calendar adventure!.

So, I haven't updated in a while because I haven't actually been home at night to relax since the last night I wrote. Tuesday night I went to a get-together with some people I haven't seen in a while, Wednesday I went to class to take an exam, and last night I was moving furniture around! No, we aren't moving yet, but we inherited a completely fantastic king-size bed from my aunt and uncle!

They wanted a new one for whatever reason, and I told them if they ever got one, to pleeeeeeeeeeeease give us the old one. We have been practically sleeping on a junkpile. It was a full-size bed, which is way too small for two people on a regular basis. (Even though we sleep on a futon smaller than that when we stay at Sean's mother's house, and don't even have that much trouble - our bed was just horrendous). The mattress was so old and saggy that we had turned it over to sleep on the wrong side (i.e., the springs) just so we wouldn't fall into the middle every time. And finally, any time you sat, rolled, or moved on it, it sounded like a cement mixer.

The new one is completely amazing! It's huge, and came with a memory foam pillow topper, which adds to the complete awesomeness. I am happy! But enough with that - this is a food blog!

More soup and salad! I love all kinds of soups and salads - I could eat them every day! I love making soups, and salads are so versatile. This particular menu was fantastic!!

The soup was done just right. I started by sauteeing some carrots, onion, celery, and mushrooms; then I added some garlic and flour to the pot to cook. I dumped in three cans of chicken broth, thyme, salt + pepper, a bay leaf, some precooked turkey, and a box of wild and long-grain rice. I simmered it for a bit and when we were ready to eat, I poured in some evaporated milk and let it boil for a minute or two. This gave the soup the perfect, slightly creamy consistency you see here.

While the soup simmered, I prepared the salad. I enlisted myself in a horrible kind of labor before I got lazy. I knew the recipe called for sunflower seeds, and I bought a cheaper bag of them with shells on because I figured the recipe would want maybe a tablespoon max of them, and it wouldn't take long to shell them myself.

The recipe wanted 1/4 cup of sunflower seeds. I myself cracked maybe a third of the dry measuring cup until I got sick of it and decided to top the cup off with pine nuts instead. I piled the seeds and nuts on top of a bed of spinach and mushrooms, and topped all of it with light ranch dressing - it was delicious!

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