I’ve made this recipe before, with much success. It’s definitely Hubby-friendly, but I don’t think the kids had it last time, so I wanted to see what they would think. At first, they were excited when they heard be say we were having chili for dinner (they are Texans, after all), but protested a bit when they saw what was in their bowls: “Where’s the chili? You said we were having chili!”
Once they tasted it, however, they were won over.
Of course, I did make some adaptations to the original recipe:
I sprinkled a bit of Baby Bam on the chicken before adding it. I wasn’t kidding when I said that I use that stuff on everything!
I added a tiny bit (1/2 tsp.?) of chili powder with the other spices.
I used 2 fresh, pressed garlic cloves (add with the onions) instead of the garlic powder and about 3 Tbsp. fresh, finely chopped cilantro instead of the dried cilantro leaves.
I added about 1/2 cup coarsely chopped baby carrots (I had them in the fridge) and about 1/2 cup pre-cooked green beans (leftover from last night’s dinner). This turned it into more of a stew than a chili.
I don’t like using the “caldo” (the liquid that comes in canned beans), because it’s very high in sodium, so I drained and rinsed them and used a chicken stock (1 additional cup) and corn starch (about 3 tsp.) slurry, instead, to give the “chili” some thickening.
I used cheddar, instead of monterey jack cheese, because that was what I had on hand. Pepper-Jack would have been even better.
The only thing that I would do differently (and I should have known better), if I make this again, would be to pat the chicken dry before adding it to the pan. There was a lot of “juice” on it (I had cut it up and refrigerated it early in the day, to make the prep faster at dinnertime) and the pan wasn’t very hot, so the chicken was more braised than browned. It would have been better with a little “sear” on it.
I served this with a salad (romaine hearts, bell pepper, tomato, purple onion and balsamic vinaigrette) and some Great Harvest bread with butter. I big hit with everyone; both of the kids said that they really liked it.