Beer Cheddar Soup and Chili- not together of course..

Ok so i've been astray for a tad, so I'm playing catch up here..

To whomever was looking for a great chili recipe, I just made a white chicken chili last week and it was incredible. I enjoyed it better than beef chili. I made an enormous pot of it and me and four of my girlfriends ate almost all of it! It is a modified version of a chicken chili receipe from the Silver Palette cookbook. My mom had recommended searching for it (online) that way. I guess The Silver Palette is a well-known cookbook? Maybe not so much to us newbie cooks! since I am at work, I just googled the recipe and found it again, so we'll see how well it copies.

First some thoughts on the recipe:

1) It calls for the chicken to be cubed and sauted, but my mom took liberties and went a different route. (she cooked the chicken, I made the chili). She placed the breasts on a baking pan, sprinkled them with a little salt and pepper and drizzled them with olive oil and baked them . Then instead of cutting them into cubes, we shredded them and threw them in the pot.
This might help little ones with small teeth? ;)

2) the end of the recipe calls for adding chocolate. My mom who has been cooking for many years, does not recmmend this. It's your call. We did not use it.

3) I do not like peppers, so we skipped that step, I think I substituted a can of different beans instead, to make up for the food mass loss. I recommend chickepeas...yum yum

4) It calls for adding 1 bottle of beer. I am not a beer drinker, but the flavor was actually quite wonderful, not overpowering at all (due to the massive amount of food you're about ot make). We used LaBat Blue (I think tha'ts how you spell it. Nothing fancy.

Ok-enough already, here it is:

Modified from The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook

In a dutch oven heat 3 tablespoons of oil and brown:

3 pounds chicken breasts, skinned, boned, cut into 1" cubes
Set the chicken aside. In the same dutch oven heat 3 tablespoons of oil and sauté for 5 minutes:

5 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1 large onion chopped coarsely
Add and sauté for additional 10 minutes:

2 sweet red peppers, diced
4 jalapeño peppers, diced
Stir in and cook for 5 minutes:

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
3 tablespoons chili powder
1 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch ground cinnamon
In the dutch oven add the chicken and:

1 28-ounce cans of puréed tomatoes
2 15-ounce cans pinto or cannellini beans
1 bottle beer
Simmer for 30 minutes then add:

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
salt, to taste

Okay, also I am looking for agood Beer Cheddar Soup. I just tried making it on Tuesday night and failed miserably, I think because I didn't let the soup cool enough before adding teh milk and c heese and I think they curdled... :( :( This is the SECOND time this has happend when Itry to make this soup. Another problem, I perfer thick soup, and soups that have been pureed. This recipe called for potatoes , carrots, celery an onions nad beans. We didn't have potatoes, carrots or celery , so I just put in a TON of onions and beans, but it wasn't enough to get it really thick when pureed. I don't like cooked carrots and we don't eat the white potatoes much because it's too much white carbs. So i am looking for a recipe that calls for other added food items that I could try. any suggestions??


thanks ladies!!! Anne, I hope I did the post the label thing right..