The rainy season finally showed up here in Costa Rica, which is the only chance of simulating any type of winter. And with winter, comes soups, stews and chili. This is when I started thinking about cheap food that I could make last a couple of days, and out came the southwest chicken stew. I’ve had some chipotle sauce in the fridge I’ve been eyeing the past few days and my husband made some blackbeans for gallo pinto, so I coupled that with some fresh sweet corn from the organic market on Wednesday in Escazú, added a little ‘this and that’ for an ultra successful TexMex dinner.

Here is the recipe:

INGREDIENTS

2 TBL Olive Oil
2 TBL Butter
2 Chicken Breasts
1 – 15oz can of black beans (or the equivalent in reconstituted dry black beans)
2 cups of chicken stock
1.5 cups of fresh corn (or frozen, canned if you absolutely must)
2 Stalks of celery, chopped
1 Yellow onion, chopped
3 bay leaves
3 TBS Chipotle hot sauce
1 TBS table salt
1 C. shredded cheddar cheese
1 C. Fritos (or corn chips)

DIRECTIONS

1. Chop chicken breasts and sautee in a pot with olive oil until no longer pink. Set aside.
2. In the same pot, sautee onion in butter until they are clear. Pour in chicken stock, black beans, corn, celery, bay leaves, hot sauce and salt. Simmer for 10 minutes, add cooked chicken back in and simmer 20 to 30 minutes more. (don’t freak out if your chicken chunks turn a purple color, this is just the color from the black beans soaking in.)
3. Serve immediately with 2 TBL of shredded cheddar and 10-12 corn chips.