White Chicken (or Vegetarian) Chili

This dish is way good, wonderful on a rainy or cold day and really easy to make into a large batch.  It takes minimal dishes to prepare and serve which means very little clean up.  Also, it can be made in the crock pot so it's wonderful on busy days.  It is also easily converted to a vegetarian dish,  I dare you to make the vegetarian version for your meat-eating family, I bet they won't even be able to tell the difference.


Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• 1 yellow pepper, diced
• 2 Anaheim peppers, diced with seeds (or turn up the heat by using 2 jalapeno peppers instead)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups vegetable stock
• 4-16oz cans white beans, drained but not rinsed (if you're not picky about color use any combo of white, black and kidney beans)
• 3 cups pre-cooked chicken (I used roasted whole chicken that I keep on hand [I'll post recipe]  You could use a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket [skin and bones removed] or if making this in crockpot use raw chicken breast cubed to 1 1/2 inches)*
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp chili powder
• cayenne pepper and salt to taste

*For vegetarian version, substitute chicken with 2 packages or Morning Star Meal Starter (Found in the freezer isle)


To make on stovetop:
 In medium stock pot heat olive oil over med-high heat.  Saute onion until translucent, add yellow pepper and Anaheim peppers and stir until they just begin to soften.  Add garlic and stir until garlic just begins to heat (it will start to smell really good)  Add vegetable broth and deglaze the bottom of the pot (scrape the yummy onion bits off the bottom).  Turn heat down to low and add the rest of the ingredients and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally until the chicken breaks down and you can't see the onions and peppers any more.  If chili gets too thick in the process add more vegetable broth.  This can be eaten after about 20 minutes of simmering but I like to let it go a couple of hours.


To make in crockpot:


Dump all the ingredients into your crockpot, stir then cook on low for 4-6 hours.  If using raw chicken breast or the Morning star, add it at the beginning.  If using pre-cooked chicken add it to the pot at the last hour and stir well.


serves four people if some of them are REALLY hungry or 6 normal people.  I serve this with corn bread.  I won't bother posting the recipe for that because I usually just use the recipe on the back of the corn meal bag.


Happy Eating!