The Great White Chili

** Please excuse the un-appealing look of my blog.  I'm still waiting on my new design to come through!

So, we had a chili cook off at my school as the finale for our canned food drive.  I was determined to enter a white chili.  However, finding a recipe I was happy with was a little more difficult. I could have sworn I saw a recipe on my friends blog so I looked and looked to no avail. (Now, I still SWEAR I saw it on someone blog so if it was yours... send me the link to put my crazy mind at rest.) Finally I found one I was willing to try (this IS a contest after all) on a favorite recipe site of mine - Food.com. (Formally recipezaar)  The result?  WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER! That's right - I won. I'd like to thank the Academy and the official taste tester at the Cabin Fever Household - my husband.

Here is the original recipe:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon lemon pepper
1 teaspoon cumin seed
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 minced garlic clove
1 cup chopped onion
2 (9 ounce) packages frozen white corn, thawed
2 (4 -8 ounce) cans chopped green chilies 
1 teaspoon ground cumin
2 -3 teaspoons lime juice
2 (15 ounce) cans great northern beans, undrained
crushed tortilla chips
shredded Monterrey Jack cheese (or whatever cheese you prefer)

Substitutions I made - I did half water half chicken broth instead of all the water. I used yellow corn because that's what I had around the house. I added in more garlic (because I love it) and some of a homemade seasoning that we have around the house that includes Lowrys, lemon pepper, black pepper, garlic salt, onion powder, and some other something that I can't remember now. Didn't use tortilla chips to serve.

Directions:
1. Mix water, lemon pepper and cumin seed in large saucepan and heat to a boil.
2. Add chicken breast halves, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer until chicken is fork tender and juices run clear, about 20-25 minutes.
3. Remove chicken from pot and cut into 1 inch pieces.
4. Add chicken back to liquid in saucepan.
5. Heat olive oil in skillet and cook onions and garlic for a minute or two and then add to saucepan with the chicken.
6. Stir in corn, green chilies, ground cumin and lime juice and heat to a boil.
7. Add beans and cook until thoroughly heated.
8. To serve- place crushed tortilla chips and some shredded cheese into each bowl and ladle hot soup over them.


My opinion on it was that it was good - not fall-down-pee-on-yourself-delicious but pretty tasty.  Actually I was pleasantly surprised that it tasted a lot like tortilla soup to me, which I've been looking for a good recipe.  It wasn't very thick as far as chili's go, more like a soup. Definitely worth a try though!  Let me know how it turns out for you!