The Garlic

Today I decided to attempt to make White Bean Chicken Chili a second time. My previous attempt I made a "slight" error with the garlic. The recipe called for two cloves of garlic and I thought that meant two whole bulbs of garlic so I chopped up all the garlic in both.... this resulted in a very strong garlic chili. Thankfully Eric and I like garlic so we ate it for dinner, but keeping leftovers was not going to happen. The apartment smelled like garlic for an entire week and so did I. I swear that I smelled it on my hands forever.

This time though I did not mess up the chili and made sure to keep the garlic at ONLY TWO cloves. The chili results were delicious. I actually ended up offering some to our neighbor above us for taste testing. I'm still awaiting his opinion though. I altered the recipe slightly. The * indicates modifications noted under the ingredients.

White Bean Chicken Chili

Recipe Taken From: Pillsbury Savy Shopper's Cookbook

Prep time: 30 min               Start to finish: 30 Minutes        9 (1 cup) servings

Ingredients:

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces

*5 1/4 cups chicken broth (from two 32-oz cartons)

2 cans (15oz each) cannellini beans, drained

*2 cans (4.5oz each) chopped green chiles, drained

1 tsp dried oregano leaves

1/2 tsp ground cumin

Dash ground red pepper (cayenne), if desired

1 1/2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese (6oz), if desired

*Chopped fresh cilantro, if desired

*I only use one 32oz carton of chicken broth because I felt that it was already soupy enough. I also only use 1 can of chiles since my fiance does not like that many. I also do not add cilantro. I add light sour cream and oyster crackers to mine with the cheese before I eat it.

Prep:

1. In 4-quart Dutch oven, heat over medium-high heat until hot. Add onion, garlic and chicken; cook and stir until chicken is no longer pink in center.

*2. Stir in remaining ingredients except cheese and cilantro. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low; simmer 10 to 15 minutes to blend flavors, stirring occasionally.

3. Serve with cheese and cilantro and enjoy!

*I then toss the chicken, garlic and onions in a crockpot and then place all the remaining ingredients in the crockpot. Turn the crockpot on low for atleast 3 hours and it will cook and blend all the flavors together. I find the beauty of the crockpot is that I can make dinner earlier in the day but it'll still be hot and ready for me when I'm ready to serve it.

1 serving (1 cup each): Calories 200; Total Fat: 4.5g ( Saturated fat 1g; Trans Fat 0g);

Cholesterol 30mg; Sodium 710mg; Total Carbs 20g; Dietary Fiber 5g

Weight Watchers Points for 1 cup of chili w/o cheese, sour cream or crackers= 4 points