White Bean Chili Sunday Night Dinner

Hey kids, sorry for the absence last week. I was super busy....getting engaged! Woot!

But back to the grind. There was a bit of chill in the air today, fall is finally coming. Well, fall in California terms anyways. So of course I immediately thought of chili! However, instead of a heavy red meat chili, I went with a white bean and chicken chili. It's creamy without having any cream, and it still has the nice burn down the throat that you want from chili.

So, start with a rotisserie chicken from the deli. Like I've said before, take the help where you can get it, even when you are making a Sunday Night Dinner. Take the skin off, de-bone, and shred the chicken. Set aside for laters.

In a stock pot, pour a five count of olive oil and add on large onion, sliced. Add some salt/pepper and let the onions sweat out a bit. Next add four chopped garlic cloves and one can of diced green chiles (the brand is Ortega, it's a small-ish can; you can usually find it in the salsa aisle at the market). Let those flavors meld a bit, and when the onions start to get some color, add a few glugs of white wine or light beer to deglaze. Cook that down for a bit, and then add a box and a half of chicken stock and two and a half cans of white cannelloni beans. You will use the rest of that half can later. Give it all a stir, and then it's time to add the seasonings that make chili taste like chili! I really eyeball this when I make it, so I apologize for not being able to give you specific measurements, but you'll just have to deal. Man up, and add some chili powder, cumin, and cayenne pepper. Go eaaaaaaasy on the cayenne at first, maybe five or six shakes. You can always add more, but you can't take it out. You can go heavier on the chili powder and cumin, but remember that cumin can overpower a dish quite easily, so be careful. You'll probably need some salt at this point, so season away and taste taste taste. Let the chili bubble away for about twenty minutes at this point so all of the flavors can meld. Keep tasting and adding more cayenne if you want more heat. You could also add a few shakes of tabasco or sriracha.

Okay now we want to thicken this chili up so that it resembles chili and not tortilla soup. Get that handy dandy immersion blender out and blend it up! If you are super lame and don't have an immersion blender, go get one. Or use a normal blender, but blend in batches and don't burn yourself. Then go buy an immersion blender.

So now that your chili is nice and blended, add your shredded chicken along with a can and a half of white cannelloni beans, and half a bag of frozen corn. Let this all bubble away while you make some corn bread.

Oooh I love me some corn bread. I am not a giant fan of baking, so I used a mix. Just follow the directions on the box and bake - it was delish. But if you want to make it from scratch, good on you.

Now, no bowl of chili is complete without some accoutrement on top. I shredded some pepper jack cheese, chopped some avocado, and put out a bowl of tortilla chips. Please add whatever you love best on top of your bowl of chili, and do it now! Try this recipe, it's a really great twist on traditional chili but it still gives you that chili love that I know you are jonesing for.

Let me know how it went!

Thanks for the great recipe, momma :-)