Dining Al Fresco: Kebab Night

If it's summer and the weather is nice on Sunday, then we're grilling. I feel guilty if we don't take advantage of rain-free Sundays to grill.

Last Sunday was a grilling Sunday. Beef, chicken-mushroom sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms, corn, and zucchini.

The beef was marinated and skewered. The tomatoes were skewered. The mushrooms were halved/quartered (depending on size) and skewered. Corn was soaked in water then grilled. The zucchini did not get skewered because there was way too much of it. We would have had 14-15 skewers of it! We used our grill basket for the 3 zucchini. The chicken-mushroom sausage (from Market District) wasn't skewered, either.

Simple but delicious. Enjoyed out on the deck. Washed down with a tasty shiraz.

The beef was grilled just right. Still a little pink for flavor but not too pink. SP bought a small roast because Market District had BOGO on small roasts, just under 2 lbs each, so he froze one and cubed the other for kebabs. We used my go-to marinade for kebabs. It's from one of my mom's cookbooks but when I copied the recipe many, many years ago, I didn't make a note of the cookbook. I just copied the ingredients and for instructions wrote 'mix ingredients, marinate meat.' 

Shish-Kebab Marinade:

1 medium onion, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp vinegar (apple cider or white)

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/8 tsp pepper

½ tsp salt

1 tsp oregano

Combine well. Pour over meat. Marinate.

We use this marinade for beef, chicken, pork, and sometimes shrimp. Usually we marinate the food for at least 4 hours. We always omit the garlic and often omit the onion. We also use dried oregano - especially since our fresh oregano seems to have died in the last torrential downpour.