This recipe has nothing to do with turkey or stuffing or what to do with all that leftover pumpkin pie (and anyway, here’s an idea).

As we all recover from last week’s Thanksgiving festivities and look forward to continued cookie gluttony later in the month, I’d like to share a delectable creation that lit a fire in my bland little soul. Though I’m not one who typically tolerates spice well, I happen to have pledged my life to a man obsessed with green chiles. Spence has a growing interest in spicy food . . . and I’m trying to expand beyond the chicken, fish and Brussels sprouts I usually have for dinner.

Enter this Buffalo chicken chili, a Weight Watchers-friendly recipe shared by a friend. With just the right amount of heat balanced by the Gorgonzola cheese (seriously, don’t skip out on the cheese), I gobbled this up for dinner and actually looked forward to lunch the next day. And the next. In fact, this recipe fed the pair of us off and on for a week.

And I didn’t mind a bit.

Buffalo chicken chili

Recipe from Weight Watchers Magazine

Ingredients:
2 tsp canola oil
1 lb ground skinless chicken breast
1 onion, chopped
2 celery stalks, sliced
2 carrots, sliced
1 (12-oz) bottle light beer (I actually used pumpkin ale. Oops?)
1 c low-sodium chicken broth
1 (14.5-oz) can diced tomatoes
1 c black beans, drained and rinsed
1/3 c mild cayenne pepper sauce (We used Frank’s RedHot)
1/4 c crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
1/4 c light sour cream

Directions:

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, about 8 minutes. Add onion, celery and carrots; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, 5 minutes.

Add beer, broth, tomatoes, black beans and pepper sauce; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 15 minutes.

Garnish each serving of chili with 1 tbsp Gorgonzola cheese and 1 tbsp sour cream.

If you’re a Weight Watchers devotee like yours truly, each serving of chili (1 3/4 cups with garnishes) comes to a PointsPlus value of 9. And well worth it! For muggles, each serving is 293 calories with 11 g total fat, 4 g saturated fat, 16 g carb, 8 g sugar, 3 g fiber and 29 g protein.