Chicken & white bean chili

You know those recipes that say add a dash of this and a splash of that? This is one of those recipes. Also, if you're looking for something healthy.. LOOK AWAY! This is in no way for the "health nut", but I went to the gym so it's ok, right? Right.


Let's get to this.

What you'll need :

3 chicken breasts
3 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
Around 32 ounces of chicken broth
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
1 onion, diced (pick your poison on this, I used a sweet onion"
1 bell pepper, diced
1 jalapeño pepper, seeded & diced
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 1/2 cups corn

Spices:
Adobo
Black pepper
Chili powder
Salt
Cumin
Garlic powder



Alright, what you're going to do first is one of these options, either pre-heat your oven and bake your chicken breasts OR boil them in a big pot. You're just wanting them to be cooked so that you can shred them. I baked mine, if you want to make it exactly how I did.

NEXT! Get out a big pot. Go ahead and heat up your vegetable oil and saute your pepper and onion. One they are nice and cooked (your onions are pretty transparent), toss in the diced jalapeño and the diced tomatoes. Once you start to smell the jalapeño add your cannellini beans, chicken broth, cream cheese, and spices. With the spices I basically just added until it looked and smelled right. (Mine had more Cumin than anything else.) Let it come to a boil. Once it's boiling take it down to a simmer for a good hour. Once your chicken is done go ahead and shred it. You can do this either using a stand mixer OR you can do what I did in order to not have to use a transformer and use 2 forks and just pull it apart. Before you add your chicken to the pot you're going to take all of the contents IN the pot and put it in either a food processor OR a blender and just let it get nice and blended and creamy. Pour it all back in to the pot, then add in the chicken, black beans, and corn. Let it simmer for another 20 minutes, and BAM. You have delicious chili.

This was what it looked like in the pot just before serving it

Sorry for the scatterbrained "recipe". We'll just chalk it up to me being a terrible blogger the past month. But there are many more recipes to come!

AND this was right before we all but inhaled it.

We added just a little bit of shredded sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream,

because at this point, why not?

Oh, soup.

Last night when I went to bed it was raining cats & dogs. All I could think was "I want soup." Because  that's everyones thoughts at 2 am, right? SO! Today when I woke up ( after I went and bought some AMAZING wicker chairs) I set out on making a soup that would be my perfect rainy, dreary, cold weather fix, and boy did I succeed. Get ready for it!


You're gonna need :

Whatever kind of sausage you like, I used pepperidge farms turkey sausage, sliced
Roughly 2-3 cups potatoes, chopped
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
3 carrots, peeled, sliced, & halved
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cans chicken broth
1 cup milk
3/4 cup cream
1 1/2 tbsp butter
Thyme
Majoram
Basil
Oregano
2 tbsp flour
Cracked pepper
Salt


Got all of that? I might of gotten a little carried away with ingredients. BUT, once you're done with chopping everything up, you actually get to cook it!

First, grab your big skillet, drizzle some olive oil in there, and throw your sausage in. While your sausage is cooking up, get your big pot and toss your potatoes, corn, chicken broth, milk, cream, and butter all up in there on medium high heat. Once your sausage is nice and cooked, add your sausage to your soup pot.

Your next step is to put your carrots, onions, garlic and herbs (don't be chintzy, you'll love me for it later.)  in the skillet your sausage was in. If you need to, drizzle a little more olive oil in there. Make sure to stir continuously to help everything not to stick to your skillet. Once that is all finished (your onions will be translucent), put it all into your soup pot too. Sprinkle in your flour, and some salt & pepper to taste. Turn it down to simmer, and let it get all nice and delicious for a good hour or 2. Resist the urge to shove your face into the pot and drink it! Seriously, the smell is brilliant.

And, when all is said and done, you have soup!

Enjoy!

20 minute soup!

So I was looking at all of these pictures of soups for WEEKS! Soups are some of my favorite things to cook/devour. So I got to pinterest-ing [ it's a real thing, don't judge me.] and I found this creamy tortellini soup. HEAVEN IN A BOWL! And it literally took me 20 minutes to make it AND the garlic bread. I changed it a little, so I'll tell you how I made it.

You'll need :
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cans of tomato soup
2 cups half and half
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped
Italian seasoning
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 cups frozen tortellini

GET COOKING!

Heat up olive oil in a large pot, once it's heated up toss your garlic in there. Let it get nice and brown. NOW! Add everything [except the tortellini] and bring it to a boil. Once it comes to a boil, toss in your pasta, and cook it in the soup by the directions on the package. Once it's cooked for the time it says [mine was 5 minutes] take it off of the heat, and serve it up!

I served mine with a garlic bread. I bought a french baguette [ yes, I was lazy and didn't make my own bread.] sliced it down the middle, put on my spread, and broiled it at 350 for 3 minutes.



Spread :

1 stick of butter, softened
1 clove of garlic, minced [you can use garlic powder if you're not a garlic lover.]
3 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped



I didn't take any pictures during the process of cooking this beautiful creation, but I did control myself long enough to snap on before I all but inhaled it.

[Not sure why I served orange soup in a yellow bowl.. It really looks a lot better than this picture]