Clean Italian Chicken Stew

It's getting cold around here!! In preparation for the week (and the cold, brrr...), I decided to modify a recipe that I found on Pinterest. I wanted to add a little more substance and to clean it up a bit. Enjoy!

Clean Italian Chicken Stew
Adapted from: Gimme Some Oven

Ingredients: 
1 sweet onion (diced)
2 celery stalks (diced)
3 carrots (diced)
4 garlic cloves
1 teaspoon of chopped basil
1 teaspoon of red pepper flakes (optional)
2 cans (BPA free) stewed Italian tomatoes
1 can (BPA free) cannelloni beans
2-3 chicken breasts (shredded)
2 cups of chicken broth
1 package of boil-in-a-bag brown rice

Directions:

1. Saute the onion, celery, garlic and carrots in the bottom of a large pot with a little olive oil. (This is called a mirepois. Go figure.)

2. Once soft, add in all the other ingredients, except for the rice. Let it boil.

3. Once boiling, add in the bag of rice. Give the rice the 10 minutes to cook, and then remove from the bag into the soup.

4. Simmer on the stove until the carrots are completely cooked.

Adapted from: Gimme Some Oven