Chicken Mole (Southern Living 1981)

Lindy picked this dish for us. It sounded fun, but with a SUPER long ingredient list...a little intimidating! I started off by changing the directions to suit my fancy. Or taste. Or whim.

Anyway, I started with cooking chicken breast (enough for 2 nights' dinners) in the crock pot. Have I mentioned how much I love slow cooking? Set it and forget it! I threw in some of the extra onion and bell pepper from this recipe and a little pepper.

Next I sauteed the onion and pepper until tender (Hey! I followed directions on that one!). I then added the following friends to the pan:

Y'all. Check out the measuring cup in the above photo. I have to brag on myself right here. Sorry, not sorry. The last time I cooked a whole chicken...I. Saved. The. Broth. I know, revolutionary, right? Then, y'all. I took it one step further. I froze that stuff into ice cubes! So now I have a bag of yellow ice cubes in the freezer. I had all kinds of ideas for labels for the bag, but I settled on "chicken broth ice cubes" and the date. I'm original like that. Plus, I didn't want to freak out and/or encourage the boys.

The chocolate and cinnamon and nutmeg kinda weirded me out. I had a bad experience with cinanmony main courses with Lindy's Bengalese Chicken. My family HATED it. I did too. Just being real. Maybe I overdid the spices or something. I totally followed directions on the spices in this recipe. Except for not really measuring the spices. I also added cumin because it just felt right. Maybe I wanted the smokey flavor of the cumin with the smokey flavor of the "smoked" Tabasco. I added about a total 2tsp of cumin.

Back to the mole.

That's when it looked like this:

And I was concerned. J-Boy does not like having "weird" vegetables (read anything but carrots or corn) in his food. Junior doesn't like ANY vegetables. I knew this would be a NO GO.

I had to do something! I had already planned to try to hide the flavor of the mole in quesadillas, but this would make dinner last for 2 hours while the boys picked at the vegetables with disgust and horror. 

SO.

I skipped the cornstarch step, grabbed the immersion blender and went to town. 

I don't have a picture of it blended up because it was apparently at this point that I lost my phone, had a baby on one hip, was trying to cook while conducting a math lesson, checking spelling, talking on the missing phone, etc. 

I tossed the newly immersion blended mole into the fridge. When the chicken was done, I shredded it and moved half of it to the fridge for the next night's dinner. I mixed the mole into the chicken that was still in the crock pot. Upon tasting it I knew I needed more cumin and a bit of salt. And some pepper. Then, YUM!

I made quesadillas so the boys would eat it. Maybe. So, the verdict?

The Hubs - loved it, wants it again

Junior - said it was too spicy. I think he might think vanilla pudding is too spicy.

J-Boy - liked it. Because...I kinda tricked him....it went down as follows:

J-Boy poking at dinner with wrinkled nose: "Hey...what's in this quesadilla?"

Me: "Chicken and cheese" (which, P.S., is completely truthful)

J-Boy takes a bite: "I like it."

J-Boy turns to his brother: "It CANNOT be spicy. Chicken? Not spicy. Cheese? Not spicy. Duh."
Me to myself: VICTORY!!! I HAVE CRACKED THE CODE!!!!!

 Baby Girl - ate about 1/49256426 of the 1/4 I gave her. Victory. She eats only pizza, ice cream, some baby foods that have fruit, hummus, cheerios, crackers, and bread. Anything else that passes her lips is a sheer miracle.

Me - I liked it. I would do it again for sure. I liked that I could break it down and prep the mole even the night before and then have the chicken in the crock pot. Having it as quesadillas was a total win for our family, plus it stretches the chicken a bit further, which is nice!