Cha Cha's White Chicken Chili

I tried this recipe a couple of weeks ago with my friend, and wanted more of it, so I made my own tonight! We originally got it from here. When we read the comments, we noticed that many people said that it was REALLY HOT, but we followed the recipe... and it was pretty spicy. :) I like spicy, but I found myself choking quite a bit... so it was spicy. Tonight I put a little less cayenne pepper. Just a thought... consider the spicy. Here it is!

Ingredients:

1 T vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped (made me cry like a baby today)
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 (4oz) can diced jalapeno  peppers
1 (4oz) can chopped green chili peppers
2 t cumin
1 t dried oregano
1 t ground cayenne pepper
2 (14.5oz) cans chicken broth
3 c chopped chicken breast
3 (15oz) cans white beans (we pureed one of the cans of beans)
1 c Monterey Jack cheese


Instructions:

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Slowly cook and stir the onion until tender. Mix in the garlic, jalapeno, green chile peppers, cumin, oregano and cayenne. Continue to cook and stir the mixture until tender, about 3 minutes. Mix in the chicken broth, chicken and white beans. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Remove the mixture from heat. Slowly stir in the cheese until melted. Serve warm.

The only other thing to consider is that I didn't add the cheese until served...  It's yummy and pretty easy - just watch out for those onions! :)

Pumpkin Choclate Chip Scones

I am pleased to report that I am no longer a scone failure! My friend and I made scones this weekend honor of fall - Pumpkin Chocolate Chip scones... YUM! We  got the original recipe from here. We followed the recipe pretty closely, but learned from our previous mistakes and added the chocolate chips - because... well pumpkin and chocolate chips are FANTASTIC together! I'll share the recipe, then share with you what we did:

Ingredients

Scones:

• 4-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cold butter
• 2 eggs
• 1-1/4 cups canned pumpkin
• 3/4 cup milk, divided 

Glaze:

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Directions

• In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, pumpkin and 1/2 cup milk. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
• Turn onto a floured surface; knead 10 times. Divide dough in half. Pat each portion into an 8-in. circle; cut each into eight wedges. Separate wedges and place 1 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Brush with remaining milk.
• Bake at 400° for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks; cool for 10 minutes. Combine the glaze ingredients; drizzle over scones. Serve warm. Yield: 16 scones.

Nutritional Facts 1 serving (1 each) equals 338 calories, 13 g fat (8 g saturated fat), 59 mg cholesterol, 348 mg sodium, 51 g carbohydrate, 2 g fiber, 5 g protein. 

*** 
(and just to warn you, the rest of these pictures were taken with my computer.. so the quality is not stellar, but you'll get the point!)

We were kind of scared after last time, we were just hoping things would go better...

We mixed the dry ingredients...

Cut in the butter...

Mixed the wet ingredients, and then slowly added them to the dry (last time, we learned (too late) that it's best not to add all of the wet ingredients at once... and also a little trick about measuring the milk with the egg already in the measuring cup. It seemed to work much better this time. Once we'd mixed them completely, we added the chocolate chips.

Because we were actually able to create something that resembled a circle and didn't just stick completely to our hands... this is so much better!

Then we cut it...

and put the first half on a pan (we're so excited that they look so normal!)

While they were baking we made a little of the glaze, and glazed half of them when they came out of the oven - the glaze is yummy. We sugared the second half with sugar in the raw before baking them - they were wonderful as well!

Scones: Take 2!These are the "oh my goodness, we actually made normal-looking scones!" faces.  Hooray!

The scones were very tasty... you should try them - but not without reading up on scones... we did that too late the last time and this is what we ended up with...

this...

and this...

tasty, but an atrocious mess and not very pretty to look at...

Chicken Florentine Pasta

{The Pioneer Woman}
Start to Finish: about 30 minutes
Serves: she says 10... I got about 8...

This recipe comes from the wonderful Pioneer Woman! Here's the post if you want to check it out - her's is way prettier than mine! I have copied her ingredients and instructions verbatim because... she already wrote it... and I don't feel like re-typing it!

Ingredients

• 1 pound Penne
• 4 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
• Salt And Pepper, to taste
• 2 Tablespoons Butter
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 4 cloves Garlic, Minced
• 3/4 cups Dry White Wine
• 3/4 cups Low-sodium Broth, More If Needed
• 1 bag Baby Spinach
• 2 cups Grape Tomatoes, Halved Lengthwise
• 4 ounces, weight Parmesan Cheese, Shaved With Vegetable Peeler

Preparation Instructions

Cook pasta according to package directions in lightly salted water. Drain and set aside.
Cut chicken breasts into chunks and sprinkle on salt and pepper.
Heat butter and olive oil over high heat in a large skillet. Add chicken chunks in a single layer and do not stir for a minute or two in order to allow the chicken to brown on the first side {I didn't do this... which is probably why her chicken was so much golder and prettier than mine...}. Turn the chicken and brown on the other side. Cook until done, then remove chicken from the skillet.

Turn heat to medium. Add garlic and quickly stir to avoid burning.

After about 30 seconds, pour in wine and broth {I did all broth... no wine - she said that you could just replace the wine with more broth if you wanted to, and I didn't have wine}, stirring to deglaze the pan. Allow the liquid to bubble up, then continue cooking until it's reduced by at least half (most of the surface of the liquid should be bubbling at this point.)
Turn off the heat. Add spinach,

tomatoes,

chicken,

and cooked pasta to the skillet.

Toss to combine; the spinach will wilt as you toss everything. Add plenty of Parmesan shavings and toss to combine. {I also added more pepper... because I love pepper!}

Serve with extra Parmesan shavings. {First of all... I'm a little annoyed with the focus of this picture... It did not do what I wanted. I also added some more Parmesan and pepper after this photo}

***

This was pretty easy, and pretty tasty. It's not so good for the "cooking for 1... or 2" part of it, unless you're looking for quite a bit of leftovers. I put a little bit in the freezer - I always like to see how that works out! And I've got more left over to feed me for the rest of the week!

On a personal note... I hate cooking with oil... I very much dislike getting burned... so I may have put a long sleeved sweatshirt on just to cook this... and got really hot over the stove, but only got burned once! So... I did cook the chicken with the oil... and I probably would the next time too (because it's also a part of the "sauce" and I think it would change the flavor), but I so don't want to... stinking popping oil!