White Chicken Chili

White Chicken Chili a la Cook's Illustrated

This New England winter calls for hearty soups and stews, pot roast and ribs.  It's hard to make low-calorie choices when the weather is cold.  I mean, really, who wants shrimp salad when the thermometer reads 22 degrees F.?  Not me, not you.

I've ventured into--let's not call it diet cooking--but cooking that doesn't break the calorie bank.  It's good, it's tasty, but man it is labor intensive.  We are trying to incorporate more fruits and veggies into our diet and also attempting to eschew processed foods whenever possible.  We are also trying to reduce sodium, yada, yada, well you can see where this is going.

Eating healthy is hard.   The "diet" chicken pot pie I made was delicious but was it ever work!  If I still worked 8:00 - 6:00 (nine to five jobs being a thing of the past) no way could I do this.  When I was in the labor force we ate out twice a week, had chicken breast one night, pork chops another, steak a third and on the weekends I cooked.

Years ago, on a business trip to Wisconsin, our host took us to a restaurant that served white chicken chili.  It was amazing,  and we were hooked.  This particular recipe used loads of sour cream, cheese, and well, the chicken was the only thing low-cal about it.

I discovered a recipe with no cheese and no sour cream in Cook's Illustrated.  Drove to the Dedham Whole Foods to pick up the chicken and an assortment of peppers along with a bunch of cilantro.  The ingredients did not break the bank, another consideration.  Today, I  made the chili.  Ye Gods it was a lot of work, and I used all the bowls, and two Cuisinarts and assorted kitchen tools.  Filled up the dishwasher with prep stuff.  Cooked it up, and tasted.  Not too interesting.  Added last minute ingredients.  Yowza!  This was good.
And we can eat it for two more days.

Here is a link to the recipe

You will surely want to try this.  Some markets may not have poblano and Anaheim peppers, but Whole Foods did.  Love that store.  You will need a food processor.  I used my mini-chopper for the garlic and jalapenos and the big bruiser for the peppers and onions.  Already looking forward to dinner tomorrow.  Oh my! 

How many chicken wings is too many? I'll never know.

When I was still in the workforce, occasionally I would have a "hungry day." A hungry day is a day that no matter what or how much you eat you are still hungry, a dieter's nightmare. Yesterday I had one.

Oatmeal for breakfast, no issue there, but as I stood in front of the prepared food counter at Roche Brothers, I thought "eight honey-stung drummies." Usually I get six, and last week seven, trying to determine the amount that might actually be filling.

When we got home it was way past lunch time, always dangerous and I scarfed down the "drummies" with a half-slice of bread, not good. Decided I could have easily eaten nine or ten.

I'm not sure I even have a limit with chicken wings. Well, surely I must have, although it hasn't been found and probably better not be.

Dinner time. S.O.'s birthday dinner. I always make a German-style stuffed cabbage with boiled potatoes and a salad. Picked up some tapioca at the prep-food counter instead of making a cake that two people would devour over the course of the week. Ate the stuffed cabbage, easy on the potatoes, and a nice salad. Waited until later for the tapioca which we ate with a bit of heavy cream.

Sneaked one cookie (homemade oatmeal raisin) and came downstairs to work on Promiscuous Mode and got into the jar of peanuts big time. I mean, there was no reason to get into the peanuts. But I was hungry.

So this morning the scale showed me the extreme error of my ways, from the homemade cookies to the unsalted peanuts and the eight (although small) honey stung drummies. Damn.

Of course there were leftover potatoes which I fried up with slab bacon, onion, tomatoes and eggs for breakfast. Double Damn. By the way, that dish is called "Hoppel-Poppel" and is in my novel, The Shadow Warriors.

I think a long, very long, walk is in order. No matter how cold the wind is blowing. And here's hoping that you don't have a hungry day, or at least not very many. Unless of course, you are skinny and still smoking like a chimney, and then you deserve a whole week of them.

Grapeshot