Mole Chicken (that's MO-lay)

I was so excited to find this recipe, being a huge fan of Red Iguana and their wide selection of fabulous mole sauces.  Most authentic moles are super complicated with tons of ingredients, this one does have a lot of ingredients but it's mostly stuff you'd have in your pantry already.  The original recipe is from Slow Cooker Revolution by America's Test Kitchen.  Their line of cookbooks is my favorite because pretty much everything is amazing, having been tested numerous times.  My version just has some slight tweaks to make it more Red Iguana..

Your house is about to smell amazing!

Chicken Mole

(Although this is a crock pot recipe, it is important to cook the first set of ingredients in the microwave to really bloom the aromatics.)

Add to a medium microwavable bowl, stir, and microwave for 5 minutes:

2 onions, minced
2 T veg oil
2 T chili powder
2 T cocoa powder (Yes, cocoa. This is one of the key mole flavors.  No wonder I like it so much!)
3 garlic cloves, minces (or three tsp. bottled garlic)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
shake of ground cloves

Scrape cooked mixture into crockpot and then add:

2 C chicken broth, OR substitute 2 cups water with 2 tsp chicken bouillon
1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
1/2 C raisins (about two of those small boxes--don't worry, I hate raisins but we're going to blend this stuff later so you won't notice them)
1/4 C peanut butter
2 tsp minced canned chipotle chiles/peppers in adobo sauce (Don't let this ingredient scare you. It should be pretty easy to find in any supermarket in the Mexican foods section.  The key part to look for is the adobo sauce.  Since you are only going to chop up two teaspons of this, put the rest in a baggie, freeze it and save it for next time.) 
2-3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs (Since thighs shrink really bad, don't skimp on this or you won't have much meat.  Also, sometimes I throw in one chicken breast to have more of a mixture of light and dark meat.)
Generous dose of salt and pepper
2 T brown sugar

Cover and cook until chicken is tender, 4-6 hours.

Since we used chicken thighs, this is going to have a lot of grease on the top.  Skim this off with a ladle and discard (it's the shimmery stuff). 

Remove chicken, put on a plate for later.

Scoop sauce into a food processor or a blender (if you use a blender you probably need to do it in two batches on SLOW so it doesn't explode all over).  Blend until smooth and pour back into crock.

Shred chicken up with two forks, add back to crock and stir with sauce.  Let it simmer for another 15-30 minutes.  Stir in 2 sliced green onions.

Serve on white rice or Cafe-Rio cilantro rice.  A side of corn goes nicely (I like to stir mine in.)

Garnish with LOTS of AVOCADOS, sesame seeds.