Black Bean Lime Chili

About a year ago, almost exactly, I won "Favorite Chili" against a bunch of amazing guy chili connoisseurs at our church cook off, all for a recipe I had never made and didn't taste before submitting. Brave? Overconfident? Short on time? I think it was the latter. Some of the entries really were incredibly delicious. A week or so later as I was talking about it with my cousin, I found out she'd also won a chili contest for the EXACT same recipe, also having never made it before. Hmmm.... interesting. Tonight I decided to find out what it actually tastes like, since I didn't get to eat any of it last time.

The recipe was initially from Food Network, but I can't find it in their database any longer.

Black Bean Lime Chili

1 cup water
2/3 cup couscous
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Vidalia onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 Tbsp chili powder
1 (14-oz) can stewed tomatoes
1 (15-oz) can black beans
1 (10-oz) can white meat chicken, or 2 cups cooked shredded chicken, skin discarded
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (from about 3 limes)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves

Bring 1 cup water to a boil in a small saucepan and then pour in the couscous in one steady stream. Stir to prevent clumps. Turn off the heat, cover, and set aside for 15 minutes. Once liquid is absorbed, fluff with a fork.

In a heavy bottomed pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and cook until soft. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add bell peppers and chili powder and cook for another minute.



Stir in tomatoes and black beans (yum!) and their liquid; bring all to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes or until thickened. Add chicken and heat through.



Stir in lime juice (I cheated. This I always have on hand, fresh limes, not so much) and cilantro and remove from heat.



Serve over fluffed couscous.



The dollop of sour cream was added for good measure because nothing with the word chili anywhere in it leaves my kitchen sans creaminess.

As you can probably tell, I used all green bell peppers instead of red and green, I also used only 1 tsp. of chili powder instead of 1 Tbsp. to make it a little more kid friendly, and I used a sweet red onion instead of vidalia because it's what I had on hand. It was alright, but there are a couple things I'll change next time. I'll use yellow and purple peppers (because I like the colors and the milder taste), add an extra garlic clove (because I can never get enough garlic), and probably reduce the lime juice to 1/3 cup as it was a little strong for my taste. I love the couscous served with it. It makes me feel like I've made something exotic :)

*And it passed the kid test!