White Bean Chili

I actually threw this recipe away. It was okay, but not worthy of posting. Well I guess I am talking about it, but that's all it gets. A few years ago I had a friend rave about "White Bean Chili" with chicken. It didn't sound good to me, but I've thought about it all these years. I finally looked up some recipes, and it all sounded okay. I checked out different kinds of beans--the recipes all called for canellini beans, but I wasn't able to find any dry canellini beans, only in a can--and that also said white kidney beans. Then we looked them up and the consensus was that Great Northern beans or navy beans were often mistaken for canellini beans. Well heck, if other people can't tell them apart, why should I be able to?

So I purchased 3 cans of canellini beans and soaked a bag of Great Northern beans I had in my pantry. They did look pretty much the same. When I think of chili, I think of the chili I make every year at Halloween with small red beans and dark red kidney beans. I soak them all night and cook them all day. Well, white beans don't want to be cooked all day. They kind of started falling apart, but I used them anyway, thinking they would be the "glue" and help thicken it up.

We cooked chicken, put in all the spices, added green chilis, and there was just something missing. It was okay. Not great. I even gave some away and the feelings were mutual. I tried to think of what was missing and made a few suggestions, one was bacon. We decided that I was trying to make white beans and ham. And if it was beans and ham that I wanted, just make white beans and ham. Put in a few carrots, some celery and that wonderful ham hock. Or just ham. (But not ham in the purple foil wrapper.)

So, we ate some, gave some away, and tossed the rest. I just couldn't even bring myself to eat any more the next day. If you have a wonderful white chili recipe, you can tell me, but I may not try it. Just sayin'.