Woznation

Im finally going to post a recipe!  I think Ive said previously – Im hoping to use this blog as a way to catalog recipes that I make often.  Ive never really kept track of measurements or cooking time, which has lead to a considerable amount of variance between batches (‘considerable amount of variance’?  Yeah, I use these phrases in every day life.)  So Im finally going to start writing these things down so that I can have some uniformity in my recipes.  And, once the baby arrives, phil can refer to the blog and make all our favorite meals when I have my hands full!! Win. Win.

So without further ado, White Chicken Chili.  I actually make this more soup-like since I use this for lunches throughout the week, but really the only difference between soup and chili is the amount of stock you put in.  Here is the list of characters:

Except the picture above is missing chicken, garlic and sour cream (this is my first recipe post, its not going to be perfect).  You’ll also need these:

First, heat up a bit of olive oil in a big soup pot.  Then chop half a large onion ( ~1 cup), 1 large pepper or 2 smaller peppers of any color (~1.25 cups, I only had green but yellow and orange peppers are great in this, too), a few baby bella mushrooms (~.25 cup), and 2 large cloves of garlic (~3 tablespoons) – and throw them all into the pot.

I just chop and toss them in as I go.  The picture above was taken right before adding the mushrooms.  Next, I add my spices.  I always salt and pepper as I go along, but in addition to that I add 2 teaspoons of cumin, 1 teaspoon of oregano, and a few shakes (start with 1/8 of a teaspoon) of ground red pepper/cayenne pepper.  Side note – if you are using store bought stock, be careful on the amount of salt you add at this step – because the store bought stock will add a lot on its own.

MMmmmm. Its starting to smell good. I promise.  Now you’re going to add your beans and fire roasted chilies.  For the 2 4 oz cans of fire roasted chilies, open and drain them.  Then toss them right in.

Then drain AND rinse the can of beans.  They are packed in a salty, kind of funky (in a bad way) liquid.  So rinse ’em good. Then toss them right in.

Now we’re ready to add the stock.  Like I said earlier, if you’re making chili – you’ll probably only want around 5 cups of stock.  But since I make this more soup like, I use 9-10 cups.

Now I bring it up to a boil, then cover it and knock it down to a simmer for like 20 mins to finish cooking the veggies and mesh all the flavors.  This would be an excellent time to give your wife a foot rub.  You know, while you wait for the flavors to mesh.  After 20 mins you can turn off the heat and add the cooked chicken (~1.5 cups), corn (~.5 cups), and sour cream (~.25 cups).  The sour cream helps ‘whiten’ the chicken chili, you could also use cream or half & half to achieve this.

You’re done!  I’d taste it one more time to make sure it has enough salt/pepper/cayenne to your liking, but other than that it should be pretty darn delicious.

Here is any easy copy/paste version of the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup onion

1.25 – 1.5 cup sweet peppers (green, yellow, orange work best for the ‘white’ part of this chili)

.25 cups of mushrooms

3 tablespoons minced garlic

1 can white beans (cannelini, navy, anything you want)

2 cans fire roasted chilies (4 oz each)

5 cups of chicken stock (or 10 cups for more soup like)

1.5 cups cooked chicken

.5 cups frozen corn

.25 cups sour cream

2 teaspoons cumin

1 teaspoon of oregano

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

salt and pepper to taste

(wow that ingredients list seems kind long when you write it all out, huh?)  Anyway…

Sautee onions, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and garlic until soft and fragrant.  Add spices to taste (careful on that salt if you’re using store bought stock!).  Drain fire roasted chilies, add to pot.  Drain and rinse beans, add to pot.  Add 5 cups of stock for chili-like meal, or 10 cups stock for soup-like meal.  Bring to boil, cover, then lower to simmer for 20 mins.  Take off heat and add cooked chicken and frozen corn.  Stir in sour cream. Done!