garlic-ancho chile shredded chicken

do this, you won't regret it. beginning to end time: 25 minutes.

ingredients:
4 chicken breasts
4 cloves garlic
2 dried ancho chiles
ground cumin
1 can tomato paste
salt, sugar
bunch of fresh cilantro, or not, or dried oregano

for serving:
corn or flour tortillas or polenta
sour cream
shredded red cabbage

how:
place chicken breasts in large pan and cover with 1.5 cups of water. throw in garlic cloves (peeled, whole) and a pinch of salt and a handful of roughly chopped cilantro. or not. or use dried oregano. cover. simmer 10-15 minutes until chicken breasts are cooked through.

meanwhile, remove the stem and seeds from two small or one large dried ancho chile. find a package of them for a buck fifty in the mexican spice section of your grocery - commonly labeled "chile mulato." they last forever in your pantry. don't be afraid. put the dried chiles in a large glass bowl.

when chicken is cooked through, remove breasts from pan and set aside. pour boiling hot cooking broth into glass bowl with chiles and let them soak for 10 minutes while you shred the chicken breasts with two forks.

add to cooking broth and chiles: 1 can tomato paste, 2 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon sugar, and a few large pinches of kosher salt. use immersion blender to create sauce. or put it in your blender, or food processor. whatevs.

pour sauce over shredded chicken* and combine.

serve in corn tortillas or over fresh polenta (or in flour tortillas if that's your thing but you have to know that flour tortillas aren't nearly as good) with shredded red cabbage, diced green onion, and a dollop of sour cream.

*set aside a serving of unsauced, garlic-poached chicken for the kiddos. the ancho chile sauce is just the teeniest bit spicy.

pictures not available because i'm lame with my camera these days. well, not the camera so much as the computer. i never bring it home so the pictures never make it out of my camera. other things you're missing: Easter, playing in the water hose, Aislinn's first encounter with toad. useless pixels on a flash memory card.