Tasty Tuesdays: White Chicken Chili

Fall is my favorite season.  I love to cook soup in the fall.  This is my favorite soup to cook and it's SO easy.  I originally got this recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, but I have made some changes since.

This is by far one of the easiest dinners I have ever made.  This is what you need:

• 3 15 oz cans of cannellini (white kidney beans)
• about 2 1/2 c chopped cooked chicken (I always have frozen chopped cooked chicken because I buy it in bulk when its on super sale, then boil and chop it for later.  So I just pulled out 2 sandwich-bags-worth)
• large onion, chopped
• green, red, yellow, and orange peppers; chopped
• 3 jalapenos, chopped (sometimes I seed them, sometimes not)
• 2 serrano peppers (sometimes I seed them, sometimes not)
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 3/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon salt
• a lot of chicken broth (this time I used about 46 oz)
• shredded cheese for topping

I typically make this as a slow cooker recipe and let it cook on low all day.  Since I don't feel like chopping tons of peppers and onions at 6am, I do that the night before and put them in the fridge.

In the tupperware are the chopped yellow, red, green, and orange peppers.  I love using tons of colorful peppers in recipes, as you probably know by now.  In two of the sandwich bags: chopped, cooked chicken.  In another: a large chopped onion.  In the last: the chopped jalapeno and serrano peppers.  This time I didn't seed any of them and it was SPICY!  But we loved it.  If we do seed the peppers, then we typically top the chili with hot sauce.  

Next, I got the rest of the stuff ready for the morning.

The crock pot is ready, the cookbook is opened to the right page, I have all of the ingredients set out and even the can opener, garlic press, and measuring spoons.  Can you tell I'm not a morning person?

The next morning, I drained the beans, added them, the broth, the spices, and everything else EXCEPT the green, yellow, red, and orange peppers.  We don't like soft peppers.  We like them to still have a bit of a crunch to them.  On this particular day, I wasn't going to be home until about 7:45pm.  So I added everything else and turned in on low.  When Josh got home around 5pm, he added the peppers.  So they only cooked for about 3 hours in there, leaving them fresh.

And that's what I smelled when I got home. mmmmmmm......

I love how it's so colorful.  And spicy.  And healthy.  And it reminds me of my favorite season.

We added some shredded cheese on top, gave it a minute to melt a little, and dug in.  We have also been known to crush up some tortilla chips and sprinkle those on, too.  Yeah, sooooo good.