Kicked-Up Chicken Tacos

 How often do you ever wonder, that million-dollar question," What's for dinner, tonight?"  Well, tonight was no different. We went to the supermarket, with a blank slate, and tried to decide, what would be easy and affordable to make?  After browsing through the circular, we noticed that our local Harris Teeter supermarket had boneless and skinless chicken thighs, on sale for a $1. 49, a pound. Once we had the chicken picked out, we started to quickly think, what can we make with it? Near the meat section, the supermarket conveniently placed the Grill Mates marinades, within eye view.  The buy one get one free sign, over the display, pretty much made this a no-brainer.

 We prepared the marinade, according to the specifications on the back of the envelope, we also added a touch of honey, to sweeten up the marinade.  Once the mixture was thoroughly mixed, we placed the 2 pounds of chicken thighs, in a Ziploc bag and allowed the poultry to marinade, for approximately one hour.

 The kettle was fired up, cleaned and sprayed with nonstick cooking spray, to prevent the chicken sticking to the grill.  When spraying the grill with nonstick cooking spray, I strongly advise to use the Weber brand, because it is specially made to NOT cause flareups.  When the coals were ready, the chicken was laid out on the grill, for about 5 min. on each side, and then turned, for a another 5 min.  After that, the chicken was placed directly over the coals, for about a minute to 2 min., on each side, to brown up the chicken.

 Once the chicken was done, it was removed from the grill and foiled, to allow the chicken to rest. We like to take a chicken off the grill, at approximately 165° internal temperature.  The chicken will continue to cook in what is known as "carry over cooking".  The "carry over cooking" will take it well beyond the safe temperature of 170° internal.  It helps to have a instant read thermometer, to test for proper cooking temperature.

 Here is the part, where the chicken gets kicked up a bit, instead of using the traditional salsa, to season up chicken, we decided to use Philadelphia cooking cream cheese, a Santa Fe blend.  After the chicken was thinly sliced,  we incorporated the cream cheese and blended it thoroughly, tasting and seasoning as we went along. Once the chicken mixture was done, it was time to get the taco shells  into the oven and heat them up for about 10 min.

The taco shells were filled with the chicken mixture, shredded lettuce, diced tomato and a mixture of shredded mozzarella and provolone cheese.  The chicken had an extreme flavor from the Mojito Lime marinade, the honey, the Santa Fe cream cheese and our seasoning.  The chicken was good enough to eat alone, because of the different layers of flavor that were obtained, but the tacos made it a wholesome meal, that was both delicious and very satisfying.  So, the next time you're thinking about what to make for dinner, consider this simple, but tasty treat. It can also be done with chicken breast  Hope you will enjoy it, as much as we do.  Buen Provecho!