Prize Winning Chili

Saturday night was the Northern Virginia Regional Young Single Adult "Chili Cook Off". My roommates and I had decided it would be fun to enter, so the week before I searched for some good recipes and my friend Kayla suggested making this one, a white bean chili. I was excited to try it out since I have never made chili before (other than opening a can of Stagg chili and heating it up in the microwave!)
Friday night was spent purchasing ingredients and it turned out to be kind of a wild goose chase. The 'chipotle in adobo' (yes, that was one of the ingredients) proved hard to find, luckily our local Chevron had it in stock. Who knew Chevron was such a jackpot for mexican/latin food? After putting the beans in water to soak I went to sleep and dreamt of dancing chipotle and jalapeno peppers.
The next day I donned my apron and the cooking began. Chili takes a long time to cook! But it was really fun to see all the different spices and ingredients that went into it. After 5+ hours of boiling and simmering the "white bean chipotle chili" was ready. It had a really delicious, spicy, smokey flavor that I was very happy with.
Sarah was the mastermind behind the presentation which included a red tablecloth, cowboy hat, bandanna and cowboy boot with sunflowers in it. Genius! My mom has taught her well. We got everything set up in the room at the church and then the tasting began. It was so fun to interact with everyone and serve them my chili. And a huge thanks goes out to my team and their grass roots campaign. Chili #24 was well represented and the voters were well informed/educated when it came time to cast their ballots.
The moment arrived and the winners were announced and to our "surprise" we won first place and a $100 gift card to the Cheesecake Factory! We were all really excited to say the least. You'll find us at the Cheesecake Factory this Saturday celebrating the sweet victory!