White Chickpea Chili

With the cold weather a lot of us experienced last week (except those lucky people in California!), I’m sure we’ve all been eating lots of warm comfort food lately.  When it gets that cold out all I want for dinner is soup, stew, or chili, but as these can often involve a lot of cooking time to develop enough flavour, during the week I need something that’s a little more quick and easy to prepare.  

Enter white chickpea chili!

I love white chicken chili as a refreshing change from tomato-based versions, but I decided to make it a little easier and cheaper to make by using all beans and no chicken.  This vegetarian white chili includes mashed chickpeas throughout for thickness, whole chickpeas and white beans for texture (and tons of protein, so you won’t miss the meat!), some corn for a little sweetness, jalapeno for spice, and then vegetable broth, garlic, onions, and seasonings for plenty of flavour.

You end up with a healthy vegetarian chili that’s inexpensive, easy and fairly quick to make, and full of flavour.  Perfect for these cold winter nights, and also Sunday playoffs if you usually associate football with chili (and if you're still watching - my team's still in it so I'm all about the football food!)

Hope you all had a good weekend and are dethawing a bit now!

White Chickpea Chili

Adapted from The Neely’s white chicken chili recipe

Serves about 4

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon olive or canola oil

1 large or 2 small yellow onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 jalapeno, minced (use more if you want it to be spicier)

2 (540mL) cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed, divided

1 (540mL) can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed

2 teaspoons ground cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon dried oregano

4 cups low sodium vegetable broth

1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

1 cup frozen corn kernels

Salt and pepper to taste

Toppings:

Shredded white cheddar cheese

Chopped fresh cilantro

Light sour cream

Chopped ripe avocado (not pictured in my version but it would be a nice addition!)

Directions:

Heat oil in a large saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onions, garlic, and jalapeno, stir to coat with oil, and sauté until soft and fragrant, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, rinse and drain your cans of beans, keeping one can of chickpeas separate. Transfer those chickpeas (1 can) to a medium bowl and mash with a potato masher until most beans have been smashed. Set aside.

Add cumin, chili powder, and oregano to the onion mixture in the pan. Stir to coat and let cook for about 1 minute. Add vegetable broth, lime juice, corn kernels, mashed beans, and remaining beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer and let cook about 10-15 minutes.

Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve warm in bowls topped with shredded cheese, cilantro, a dollop of sour cream, avocado, and additional lime wedges, if desired.

Pasta with Chicken & Broccoli in a Mushroom White Wine Sauce

When I was looking through my hundreds of bookmarked recipes for a comforting, easy meal to make for dinner one night, I came across this pasta with roasted garlic, white cheddar, and wine sauce on Annie's Eats and it fit the bill perfectly. Most normal people would have made the recipe as written, because it looked pretty amazing. But because I can't seem to follow a recipe for the life of me, my brain immediately started whirring with ideas to change things up a little, and this is what I came up with!

Instead of making a butter-flour based sauce with chicken broth and a bit of white wine, I decided to use equal parts wine and broth, and I switched to a mushroom broth (and threw in some onions and mushrooms) so the sauce would have lots of flavour. I eliminated the butter because the cheese made the sauce thick and rich enough. I kept in the roasted garlic but added a bit of Dijon mustard for an extra kick. Finally, I threw in some sundried tomatoes for added flavour and texture.

Everything was so flavourful and combined into an amazing meal that tasted rich but was still reasonably healthy by my standards. The best part was the sauce, which you can't really see in the pictures because it absorbed into the ingredients pretty well, but it had such a deep flavour that really made the dish. It may seem like a lot of work to make this, but if you prepare a few things ahead of time, like the roasted garlic and chicken, then it's pretty easy to throw together. And of course, you can easily make it vegetarian by leaving out the chicken as there's plenty else going on in this pasta!

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend! Mine will be filled mostly with school work and housework, but I'm hoping to get out to enjoy the sun a bit - it's been gorgeous here lately!

Pasta with Chicken & Broccoli in a Mushroom White Wine Sauce

Adapted from a recipe originally from Good Things Catered (no longer active) and seen on Annie’s Eats

Makes 4-6 servings

Ingredients:

2 heads of garlic

1 tablespoon olive oil, divided

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 large chicken breast

1 lb penne pasta (whole wheat or regular)

1 head of broccoli, chopped into florets

1 small onion, diced

8 oz pre-sliced white or crimini mushrooms, roughly chopped

1 cup dry white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)

1 cup mushroom stock (I made this from a bouillon cube, but if you can’t find it, you could substitute chicken stock)

1-1/2 cups grated sharp white cheddar cheese

1 tablespoon flour

Ground black pepper

1/2 cup diced sundried tomatoes (rehydrated if necessary)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Cut the ends off the two heads of garlic so that the cloves are exposed.  Drizzle the exposed cloves with a teaspoon of olive oil, then wrap the heads with aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet.  Roast in the preheated oven for about 1 hour.  Unwrap and let cool, then squeeze the garlic out of the skin and mash into a paste.  Mix the Dijon mustard into the garlic paste.  Set aside.

Heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Cook chicken breast in the skillet for about 5-6 minutes per side, until cooked through.  Remove from heat and let rest a few minutes before slicing into small pieces. Set aside.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook for length of time specified on package.  Set chopped broccoli in a steamer basket over the boiling water and cover.  Steam for about 3 minutes until crisp-tender, then remove from heat.  When pasta is finished cooking, drain and set aside.

At the same time, heat a teaspoon of olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.  Add chopped onion and mushrooms and cook until soft, stirring often, about 5-7 minutes.  Add the roasted garlic paste and stir for about a minute.  Add the white wine and mushroom broth and bring to a boil.  Let simmer until reduced by about half, about 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Stir in the cheddar cheese until melted.  Add the flour and whisk the mixture over low heat, until thickened slightly.  Season generously with pepper.

Combine the pasta, chicken, broccoli, sundried tomatoes, and sauce in a large pot.  Heat briefly over low heat if not warm enough.  Serve warm.

Thanksgiving Week Day 5 - Butternut Squash Gratin

For Day 5 of Thanksgiving Week I wanted to choose a side dish recipe that was a little more exciting than mashed potatoes (although I do love mashed potatoes) but still easy enough to manage as part of a big meal.

I initially chose a recipe for honey and herb roasted root vegetables from Cooking Light. I shopped, chopped, cooked, and photographed before tasting and deciding that the recipe just wasn't special enough to share for Thanksgiving Week. It was still good, just a little boring.

I then had a lot of pressure to choose a really good recipe to share instead, and decided to go with a Bon Appetit recipe for a butternut squash gratin, which got lots of really good reviews on Epicurious. One bite in, I knew I'd made a good choice this time - whereas I wouldn't care if I ever ate the root vegetables again, this gratin was definitely something I would (and did) go back for seconds of.

I was a bit worried about the type of cheese that the recipe called for, as I'd never paired squash and cheddar together, but the caramelized onions really brought everything together in an unexpected but delicious way. The only bad part about this recipe was that it was hard to photograph, and I hate when really tasty dishes don't come across that way in pictures. But trust me, underneath that pile of messy breadcrumbs is some of the most flavourful squash I've ever tasted! I think the chicken broth helped infuse a unique flavour to the squash that I really liked, but you could easily use vegetable broth to make this dish vegetarian.

There are only 2 days of Thanksgiving Week left and I've saved the best for last - the main dish and the dessert - so be sure to come back for the recipes!

Butternut Squash Gratin with Rosemary Breadcrumbs

Adapted from Bon Appetit, as seen on Epicurious

Serves 8 - 10

Ingredients:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 cups thinly sliced onions
2 1/2 pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
3/4 cup low sodium chicken broth
1.5 to 2 cups fresh breadcrumbs made from soft white bread (I used storebought, panko would also work)
2 cups (packed) grated sharp white cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 13x9x2 glass baking dish with cooking spray.

Melt butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and sauté until soft and golden, about 8 minutes. Add the chopped squash, stir and sauté another 4 minutes. Sprinkle the sugar, salt, and pepper over the vegetables and sauté until onions and squash begin to caramelize, stirring often, about 5 minutes.

Spread the squash-onion mixture in the prepared baking dish. Pour the chicken broth over the mixture, cover tightly with foil and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes.

*The above steps can all be done 1 day ahead. Just cool the mixture after baking, then cover and refrigerate. Reheat the next day in a 350°F oven until heated through, about 10 minutes, then proceed with the rest of the directions.

Increase oven temperature to 400°F. Mix the breadcrumbs, cheese, rosemary and thyme in a large bowl, then sprinkle evenly over gratin. Bake uncovered until top is golden brown and crisp, about 25-30 minutes.

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For other Thanksgiving side dish ideas, check out these links:

Cider glazed roots with cinnamon walnuts from Eating Well
Maple roasted sweet potatoes from Eating Well
Crispy potato roast from The Bitten Word
Potato gratin with rosemary crust from The Bitten Word
Oven roasted garlic brussel sprouts from Sweet Pea's Kitchen
Mashed sweet potatoes from All Recipes

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