Santa Fe Chicken Soup

This is a wonderful soup with a nice spicey edge. First, cut two tomatoes in half and place under the broiler until the skin is blistered and blackened. Set them aside. Place 2 chicken breasts in 6 cups of water along with an onion, carrot, a rib of celery and a couple cloves of garlic. Bring to a boil and maintain a slow simmer for 60 min. This process creates the stock which forms the base of the soup. If you don't want to take the time, canned stock can be used. Remove the veggies from the stock and discard them. After the chicken cools, cut it into bitesized pieces. Saute 1 chopped onion, 2 jalapanos ( seeds removed), 3 cloves of garlic until tender. Chop the tomatoes prepared previously and add them to the saute pan. Continue cooking until the juice from the tomatos has evaporated. Add the veggies and the chicken to the stock and along with 1/2 C of uncooked rice or barley; simmer until it is cooked. At the end, you can add some crumbled tortilla chips, or, as we did, some mesa flour either of which thickens the soup just a bit and gives a nice corn flavor.Serve the soup with chopped cilantro, sour cream (pictured) and avacado.
We drank a Spanish Rose' with it.