White Chicken Chili

We've made this spicy main-dish soup once before, then appreciating its heady green-chili qualities. This time, we had a glut of homegrown chilies to use up, so subbed the Anaheim variety for our "New Mexican"s, and using our tiny Ohio-grown poblanos in quantity (x6!), to achieve an equivalent of '3 medium'. Homemade chicken broth, along with the homegrown chilies, and other kitchen-cupboard ingredients, meant that the only item costing more than a dollar or so was the chicken.

The easy (with a food processor), one-pot preparation is as follows: brown the chicken (split breasts), remove from heat, take off the skin, defat the pan and add a food-processed puree of chilies & onions, along with garlic and some spices. Cook till soft, then put some of this back in the processor, with some canned white beans and broth. Puree, dump back in the pot, add the chicken, the rest of the broth, and let cook till the chicken is done. Take the meat from the bones and shred it up, dump in some more beans to heat thru, and hit it with some lime juice, scallions, and cilantro.

Over home-brewed Oktoberfest, a table of 5 adults enjoyed this hearty stew with bread and sides of salad and veggies. Add some cake for dessert and you're set.