chipotle chicken sweet potato pumpkin ale chili

It should be no surprise that this chili has a long name because it takes a long time to make. I thought I could easily make it one night during the week but it ended up taking me a few days because I didn't plan ahead very well.

First of all, it would have been much easier if I had used canned black beans but I decided to make my own. So on the first night (Sunday) I soaked my beans thinking that in the morning I would cook them in the crock pot all day... but when morning came I decided not to. Instead, I cooked them that night (Monday) when I got home. I also cooked the chicken and prepped the veggies, once again thinking that I would just toss everything in the crock pot in the morning. Wouldn't it have been nice to come home to a dinner that was ready? Yes, that's what I thought too- but, of course, I didn't get up early enough to do that. I'd now been trying to make this chili for 2 days... and still no chili. When I got home that night (Tuesday) I ended up throwing everything in the crock pot so that it could cook all night and be ready in the morning.

That next morning Ebert and I woke up to the aromas of garlic and smokey chipotle. Those are not the usual smells that I'm used to in the morning but it certainly got me excited for some chili. And then finally that evening (Wednesday), we dined on chili...and it was delicious!

These are the variations I made to the recipe-

I used this pumpkin ale.

I couldn't find chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, instead I used 2 jalapeno peppers and 2 Tablespoons of chipotle powder.

I also used a lot more minced garlic and garlic powder than the recipe called for. You can never have too much garlic as far as I'm concerned.

Happy Cooking!