Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken

This is one of the meals from last week that I never got around to posting.

This is one of my favorite marinades/dressings for grilled chicken. You can control the heat by the amount of jalapeño’s you put in. *When the grocery stores are brimming with New Mexico Hatch Chilies and there is a guy out front of the store fresh roasting them, I usually substitute the hatch’s for the jalapenos. Taste as you mix to assess the heat level. It does decrease in heat when you cook it but you want the mix to be tolerable fresh as well because it’s good as a finishing drizzle over the top of the grilled chicken.

Recipe adapted from EliseA over at Simple Recipes : Spicy Garlic Cashew Chicken

Ingredients:

Chicken – bone in, bone out, breasts, thighs, wings – doesn’t matter, what ever you prefer

¼ cup Olive Oil

2 tbsp Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Brown Sugar

½ bunch Cilantro

1-2 Jalapeno’s (*see note above)

1 Lime - juiced

1 cup Cashews

With gloves on or with oiled hands, cut the tops off of the jalapenos and remove the seeds. (I typically use only one jalapeño but I leave most of the seeds in it. That heat is good for the kids once grilled but has enough of a kick when raw for Brad and I to enjoy.)

In your food processer, blender or bowl for your immersion blender, add all the ingredients and pulse until a smooth paste forms. If the mixture is not coming together you can add in more lime juice or up to 2 tbsp of water.

Reserve 1/3 of the mixture for drizzling over the finished chicken.

Coat the chicken with the remaining mixture. Let stand for at least 2 hours but overnight is best.

Cook on the grill until done or in the oven, covered, for 30 min’s at 400 until done.

Serve with rice, black beans and corn on the cob. Yum!

Sorry I didn't take more pictures for this one, I was making it in kind of a rush and the pictures I did take are very poor quality so I'm just skipping them. You'll have to use your imagination...or better yet, make this and you'll know exactly how it looks. :)