When my boyfriend cooks....

...it's always a good thing!


Brett may not cook for us often, opting to just "STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN!" (apparently that's a line I'm known for hollering at Brett at the critters), and he's often a nervous cook, but he's come a long ways since we first met! Back then it was boxed mac n cheese, boxed Hamburger Helper, etc...you get the idea. Oh, and he's always made a kick-ass batch of mashed potatoes (his secret? Red skin potatoes, canned milk and cream cheese go in the mix!) But then he decided to make his dad's recipe for fried chicken strips, and then dabbled in chili, which he's gotten great at! He'll help out with other foods as well, and is always a much better taste tester than I am - I'll just throw stuff together and hope it's going to taste good when we sit down to eat. Brett'll taste, and taste again and KEEP tasting, dabbling here and there with the seasoning, getting it just right.

We decided with the cooler weather that maybe it was getting to be soup time (Brett looooooves soup), and hey, let's experiment - how about a white chili? I'd never had it, and I don't think he had either. I found some recipes online for guidance, we picked up some stuff at the store, and here's Brett's end result:


That turned out pretty darn good! This time *I* was the helper - I roasted a couple monstrous bone-in chicken breasts that I later picked the meat off (Brett doesn't do this - too gross), and chopped up the onions, garlic and celery, plus shredded the Monteray Jack cheese. The rest was all Brett - deciding how many cans of green chilis and Great Northern beans would go in, deciding how much chicken broth, cumin, cayenne, oregano and I don't know what else was just right, etc...

He forgot he wanted to add frozen corn to the mix, so that got dumped in AFTER we served up our bowls - this way leftovers will be a little different. We had our nice soup along with chips and salsa that I'd made/canned last weekend, and I decided to add a bit of avocado to my bowl...


Annnnd I even talked him into eating out on the deck - GASP! What a great meal! I hope he wrote down what he put in it, and I know we were discussing things he might like to try a little differently next time. But for a first go, this was some REALLY good soup!! Thanks hon!