White Bean chili a la SCD

Over the past month or so, I have been working on emptying our overflowing freezer. Two weeks ago, I found some cooked white beans that I had frozen a couple months ago. Our friends were serving chili at our community dinner, so I decided it might be a good time to try some white bean chili. With some improvising on the fly, it turned out pretty good. Unfortunately I did not write down the specific improvisations, but here's a close approximation. The original recipe came from myrecipes.com. 

Ingredients: 

1 medium onion

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 garlic cloves (I used SCD legal minced garlic from Spice World)

1 lb ground chicken

4 cups water

1-2 teaspoons salt (I'm a bit of a salt fiend)

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 tablespoons chili powder (to taste)

1 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon oregano

2 cups white beans (cooked per Breaking the Vicious Cycle instructions)

1 cup homemade chicken broth

3 tablespoons lime juice

Preparation

• Sauté chopped onion in hot oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat 7 minutes; add garlic, and sauté 2 to 3 minutes.
• Stir in chicken, and cook, stirring constantly, until chicken is lightly browned. Stir in water and salt, cumin, chili powder, pepper, and oregano; reduce heat, and simmer, stirring often, 10 minutes or until chicken is done.
• Place beans into Dutch oven; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring often, 30 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Stir in lime juice just before serving. Garnish with cilanto, if desired.
• Top with freshly shredded Monterrey jack cheese. 
• Optional: I cooked some frozen corn on the side and added that to the non-SCDers bowls. I  served corn muffins and tortilla chips for them along with the chili. I had made some SCD muffins to go along with mine. Also, the recipe calls for 2 cans of green chiles (4.5 ounces each) but I omitted these as well just because I didn't have any legal ones on hand.

It's a great dish for the increasingly cold nights!