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Making healthy choices can sometimes be expensive. You make a vow to exercise more and end up spending a lot of money on workout apparel. Promise to eat healthier and your food budget goes through the roof.

You can offset some of the fitness costs with discounts and coupons. Different sites, like NerdWallet’s coupon listings, offer Athleta coupon discounts for other retailers as well. If you want to get healthy, get yourself motivated by doing it in style!

You can manage your food budget with coupons, and by making recipes that are healthy, but use affordable ingredients. Paella, a Spanish rice dish, is one such recipe.

What you need:

1 Small bowl
2 large bowls
1 tbsp. smoked paprika
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken tenders cut into cubes
1 lb. large or jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
½ cup dry vermouth or dry white wine
1 whole lemon
A large skillet with deep side
1 lb. low-fat kielbasa or smoked sausage
1 tbsp. olive oil
½ cup fresh or frozen diced onion
½ cup fresh or frozen diced bell pepper
3 cups fat-free chicken broth
1 cup frozen peas and carrots
1.5 cups medium or short grain rice
½ tsp. saffron (optional)
Salt
Pepper

Mix the paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper together in a small bowl.

Put the chicken and shrimp into two separate bowls. Sprinkle approximately half the spice mixture over the chicken, and half over the shrimp.

Splash ¼ cup of dry vermouth and the juice of ½ a lemon over the chicken. Sprinkle the other ¼ cup of vermouth and remaining lemon juice over the shrimp. Mix both bowls to ensure that the chicken and shrimp are evenly coated. Cover the owls with plastic wrap, and set them aside.

Brown the smoked sausage in the skillet, set to medium.

Add the olive oil and let it warm, onion and peppers to the skillet. Stir and sauté until the onion and peppers are slightly browned.

Add the chicken to the skillet. Stir and sauté the chicken for 2 minutes or until the pieces are no longer pink on all sides.

Add all of the chicken broth to the skillet, and add the saffron threads to the broth. Stir the broth until it starts bubbling.

Ladle approximately 1 cup of the broth into a heat-safe bowl.

Stir in the frozen peas and carrots into the skillet. Turn the heat to high and stir the skillet until the broth comes to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cover the skillet.

Let the rice cook about 10 -15 minutes, or until about half the liquid is absorbed. Do not stir the rice.

Add the shrimp to the skillet. Do not stir it in; let it sit on top of the rice. Spread the shrimp around so that it’s one even layer.

Pour the rest of the broth over the shrimp, cover the skillet and let it cook on medium-low for another 10-15 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all the liquid.

Let the skillet cool and serve the paella directly from the skillet and accompany it with salad and nice crusty bread, or cheese garlic biscuits.

If at all possible, use a skillet with a clear top so you can see the rice without removing the cover — the rice will cook better and faster. If you must remove the cover, only remove it once or twice, and replace it as quickly as possible.

You might have a layer of crispy, browned rice on the bottom and sides of the skillet. That crunchy part is called soccarat, and it’s the hallmark of well-made paella.

You can save prep time by using pre-cut vegetables from the fresh or frozen produce section, and buying the shrimp pre-peeled and deveined.

The saffron is the most expensive item in this recipe, and it is also difficult to find. You can omit this ingredient and the recipe will still work fine without it.

Consideration was received for the editing and publishing of this article