Chicken Chili

A good handful of my recipes come from looking in the fridge and pantry and trying to think of something I can make with what I have already.  Ryan and I did some late night grocery shopping on a Sunday night and I knew I had a few things at home I wanted to use up.  I bought a few more ingredients while we were shopping and then came home and starting cooking chili at 8:30 at night.  This was kind of late for chili but I knew it would serve us well the next several days of a busy work week. 

PRO TIP: Ask your deli counter if they will mark down the rotisserie chickens if you're shopping late at night.  They can't sell those the next day so they'll probably offer a discount. I learned my store usually marks them down around 8:30pm.  I was an hour early but the manager went ahead and gave me the discount...$1.00 off.  Not major but I'll take it! :)

We got home with some fresh ingredients, including that discounted rotisserie chicken, and I started cooking.  I pulled the following items out of the fridge and pantry to use up:

• Bag of spinach
• 1 can of black beans
• 1 can of cannellini beans
• 1 can of corn
• Roasted red peppers (These were leftover from a pepper/olive spread from Christmas)
• Peppadew peppers (These too)
• 2 onions
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 box of low sodium chicken stock
• 1 can tomato sauce
• My normal spices I keep on hand (chili powder, cumin, paprika, cayenne pepper)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• EVOO
• S&P

Cooking with color!

Added those to my pile of ingredients I just bought at the grocery store:

• Rotisserie chicken
• 2 green peppers
• 1 jalapeno
• 1 can fire roasted tomatoes
• 1 can Rotel's Chili Fixin's

I like to call a meal like this a Chop & Drop.  You basically chop most of your ingredients and just drop them all into one big pot.  Simple!

Instructions:

• Get out your big pot...this makes a TON of food!
• Coat bottom of pan with EVOO and turn heat up to medium, medium high.
• Chop onions and drop into pot.  Let cook for about five minutes while you chop peppers and jalapeno.
• Drop in all the peppers and let those cook about five minutes.
• Add your garlic - I grate mine right into the pot.
• Drain and rinse both cans of beans and the can of corn.
• **Sometimes I like to put my corn into a small pan on really high heat with some EVOO and give it a good char, get some brown color on there before I add it to the chili.  Other times I just dump it in.**
• Drop the beans and corn into the big pot.
• Season all liberally with S&P, chili powder, cumin, paprika and cayenne pepper.  I don't have exact measurements here as I season to my personal taste.  You can start small and add more later as you taste to get it to where you like it.  Start with 1/2 a tablespoon of each, except for the cayenne unless you like it hot!
• **This time I had some Louisiana Cajun seasoning and added some of that as well for extra heat.**
• I degalzed the pot with about 1/2 a cup of white wine.  Let that cook off a few minutes.
• Add your "sauces" - The can of tomato sauce, Rotel's Chili Fixin's and can of fire roasted tomatoes.
• Stir around and season again if need be.
• I dumped in the whole bag of spinach at this point.  I had never done this before but I was looking to use that spinach up before it went bad and I figured it would add even more healthy nutrients to the pot.
• Pour in the whole box of chicken stock and stir together. 
• At this point I knocked the heat back to medium-low and started tearing up that rotisserie chicken with my hands.
• I added the pieces of chicken, shredding with my hands as I went, into that big pot of goodness.
• Let simmer and taste for seasonings.  I thought my batch needed a little more of everything so I added some more S&P and the spices.

I like to add a dollop of sour cream and a squeeze of lime when I serve this...and a couple crushed up tortilla chips for crunch.  Maybe a splash of Crystal hot sauce for added spice. This made a HUGE batch of food.  It lasted most of the week with Ryan and I both eating it for lunch at work and quick weeknight dinners.  It tasted even better as the week went on and the flavors hung out together.  We probably got around 8 servings of chili from this batch.

Another great thing about it?  It was super healthy without tasting like "health food."  Chock full of veggies and protein from the beans AND chicken.  Want to make it vegetarian? Leave out the chicken and use veggie stock in place of the chicken stock.  You've still got a nutritious bowl of goodness.  You can feel good about eating seconds!

If you're not going to eat it all within a few days, put some in a freezer ziploc bag and store it in the freezer for an easy meal at a later date.  I store all my leftover liquids in large freezer bags and lay them flat so I can stack them on top of each other and save space in my freezer.  Enjoy!