Turkey Pumpkin Chili

Day 2 of Pumpkin Week is dedicated to how versatile pumpkin is.  I love the fact that you can use pumpkin for savory dishes as well as sweet treats.

It's starting to get cooler around here and right when the weather starts to turn I always want to make chili.  This is not your traditional chili and not just because it has pumpkin in it (I just realized I need to share my mom's sweet chili with you - it's pretty delicious too!).  It's more like a white chili because it doesn't have any tomatoes in it.

This is a crock pot recipe (although you could cook it on the stove as well if you're not in a slow cooker mood).  I generally get irritated with slow cooker recipes that have you cook the food before you put it in the crock pot (what's the point of using the crock pot if you have to dirty another pan?) but I give this one a pass.

The night before I intended to eat this chili, I browned the ground turkey and sauteed the onions and spices (I may have snuck in a jalapeno as well to spice things up a bit more).  I put the turkey and onions along with all the other ingredients (pumpkin, white beans, chilis, chicken stock, etc.) into the crock pot and then stuck the whole thing in the refrigerator.  When I got up the next morning all I had to do was take it out of the fridge and plug it in.  I find that assembling everything the night before makes the whole crock pot dinner thing easier to handle before I've had a cup of coffee.  I don't much of anything before coffee.

When I got home from work the house smelled really great and the dog was already licking his chops (poor Sconnie had been tormented by the chili smell all day long and he never got to eat any of it).  Unfortunately when I opened the lid of the crock pot the chili didn't look so good.  I was frightened but pulled myself together enough to stir the pot and add a little more water and while the chili still looks like dog food at least it doesn't look dry and burned.

Despite the chili's less than stellar appearance, it tastes great!  It was warm and comforting, just what I needed on a cool night.  The bonus is that this is a pretty healthy recipe.  It turns out that pumpkin is really good for you until you mix it with two sticks of butter and a cup of sugar.  Who knew?

This recipe can be found on Skinnytaste.  The only change I made was to saute a diced jalapeno with the onions.

Enjoy!
Julie