I learned when I moved to SE Indiana that chili where I come from does not mean the same as chili where I live now. Mom’s chili had ground beef, chili and kidney beans, onions, tomatoes, spices, beer, (and maybe a few other things I’m missing!) in it. No noodles or macaroni. You ate it like a soup from a bowl with a spoon. When I tried “chili” from Skyline for the first time, it immediately seemed wrong to me. One, it was served with pasta. Yuck. Two, it wasn’t “soupy” at all; you could eat it off of a fork (texture is a big thing to me, and this texture just wasn’t right!). Three, it was almost as if they had to cover up the taste of their “chili” with the cheese, which is piled on like a mountain (when I was eating cheese this was not a bad thing!). And last, I expect a little spice when I eat chili, but this was sweet and had a cinnamon or some other flavor I couldn’t identify to it (which was not enjoyable to me).
The point is not to bash Skyline chili, just to say that sometimes recipe names can be a little misleading, especially if you are expecting one thing before eating it and then taste a whole different thing. I feel like lately since changing our diet I have been saying to my husband a lot, “Now this is called “something” (i.e. chocolate chip cookie), but don’t expect it to taste like a “real” chocolate chip cookie, or you might be disappointed.” Your palate truly does have to get used to tasting food in a different way. That is why the “chili” is in quotes for the recipe name. I would call it more of a “chicken vegetable soup.” Whatever you want to call it, it’s tasty in my opinion, and after all of the slicing and dicing, all you have to do is throw it in the crock pot. Don’t tell me it’s too hard to eat well 😉
The original recipe was taken from:
http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/2006/02/two-artists-chili.html
There were a few ingredients that I didn’t have, or didn’t seem necessary to add in my opinion, so here’s how my ingredients list looked:
Ingredients:
1 medium onion, diced
1 jalapeño, seeded, stemmed, diced
1 medium red bell pepper, seeded, cored, diced
2 medium carrots, sliced into coins
1 small butternut squash, peeled, diced
1 medium sweet potato, peeled, diced
2 cups water
1 can of black beans and 1 can of hot chili beans
1 teaspoon ground cumin, or to taste
1 teaspoon chili powder, or to taste
Sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, garlic powder, and crushed red peppers to taste
Lime juice, to taste
3 chicken breasts (mine were still frozen)
Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients except the chicken in the crock pot. Give it a good stir and then place the chicken breasts on top. Cook on low for 6 hours or until chicken is at appropriate temperature. Shred the chicken then stir it back into the crock pot. That’s it!
We added a little homemade guacamole to ours, and we both loved it. I’m sure you could also try this recipe with ground beef or sausage, depending on what sounds good to you. We were talking about how this might be a good one to make a big batch of then freeze to have for those late nights at work when you get home and just don’t want to cook. Even if you don’t work late, everyone has those days you don’t want to cook, and this is a better option than one of those frozen dinners 🙂
What? No Milk?! 