Soup Recipe for Snow Day #831: White Chicken Chili

I started reading Bread and Wine by Shauna Niequist yesterday and it put me in the mood for some (air quote this) 'cooking.' By that I mean I was weirdly in the mood to prep supper for tonight and tomorrow night, which is not a feeling I ever have.

Snow days either make me SUPER productive or SUPER lazy. There is no in between. Turns out today is a productive snow day.

Even though Shauna would probably DIE at me saying her book spurred me on to open some cans to throw in a crock pot for soup on this cozy snow day...it's just what happened. 

I started at 10:30 and finished cooking + all the clean-up at 1:30 and THAT IS WHY I DON'T COOK REAL THINGS IN THE KITCHEN. Goodness. It did, however, help me avoid showering...which as you may notice based on the fact that I'm currently writing this blog post...I am still putting that off.

Side note: Making this white chicken chili did NOT take me three hours. Prepping sweet potato hash for tomorrow night, making the chili, and then cutting up the rest of the chicken breasts in the package to be bagged and thrown in the freezer is what took three hours total. This chili should take 30 minutes or less to throw together.

I double the recipe every time I make this, and it does a good job filling the crock pot...so that's how I'll write it here...plus, leftovers. And honestly, this stuff is better on Day 2.

2 packages of cream cheese (use light if you want to feel less bad)

2 cans of corn (drained)

2 cans of black beans (drain one, keep one)

1 can of Rotel 

1 can of diced tomatoes
1/2 onion

Package of taco seasoning

Package of ranch seasoning

3 decent-sized chicken breasts, cubed

Jamie told me I did this out of order, but I'll tell you something, it all ends up the same...so I do what's easiest.

Open everything and start dumping.

That's it. 

You can cube the cream cheese so it will melt easier, but because mine was going to be crock-potting for most of the day, I just threw both blocks in and locked the lid. I also found an awkward, mostly-empty, bottle of ranch in the fridge and dumped that in too. Why are there always three half-empty bottles of ranch in my fridge?!

Add chili powder if you'd like more of a kick! I prefer to set out a few different heat-levels of chili powder so people can shake what they want into their own bowl. This way everyone wins and no one is complaining it's too spicy.

If I'm making it in the morning, the medium setting on the crock pot seems to work just fine. If I'm nervous about the chicken cooking in time for 6:00 supper because I haven't gotten it together early enough, I use the high setting.

Tonight I'll serve with guac + 'hint of lime' tortilla chips. Probably also a marg. It's Mexican food in super-easy soup form...if you don't support this, we can't be friends.

MmB