Since we're starting to get more vegetables from the garden, I decided it was time to up the ante in the meal department. I thought and thought about what to make and kept going back to veggie kabobs, so WA-LA! veggie kabobs.
First, I had to locate and dust off our indoor grill. We got it as a wedding gift and I'm embarrassed to say we've never used it (but, hey! we've only been married 2 years. Not bad, right?). I then had to locate the directions (because you know they are NEVER with the item, at least not in my world) and we got it going.
I made a marinade for the veggies to soak in for an hour beforehand. Looking back I wish I'd let them soak longer, like overnight, but they were still fab (because if they weren't I wouldn't be sharing them with you).
Recipe: Veggie Kabobs
What you need (serves 2 peeps):
12 mushrooms
6 shallots (chopped in large chunks)
1 medium zucchini (chopped in chunks)
1 medium summer squash (chopped in chunks)
3 yellow pear tomatoes
3 brown berry cherry tomatoes
1 small eggplant (peel and chopped)
Marinade:
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp teriyaki soy sauce
2 tbsp Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame dressing/marinade
1 tsp Tastefully Simple garlic pepper seasoning
1 tsp Weber Kick'n Chik'n seasoning
Soak 6 wooden skewers in water for 30 minutes. Prepare marinade in a large, shallow dish with a lid (Pyrex glass cake pans with lids work well). Place vegetables in marinade and toss until well coated.
Place in fridge, for 1-2 hours (or overnight), tossing the veggies every 15 minutes (don't worry about tossing if left overnight). After 1-2 hours, place veggies on a wooden skewer, alternating vegetables so that each skewers has several of each veggie. Place skewers on preheated grill. Cook for 10 minutes, turning skewers every so often and lightly brushing with leftover marinade.
You can also grill any leftover vegetables you have. Remove skewers with tongs and serve with rice (BROWN!).
Yum. Despite waiting for the marinade to soak in, this was really a quick and easy meal. Remember that we used an indoor grill, though. It takes about 10 minutes to preheat.
What I learned: Chop the shallots! As you can see from the pictures, I did not. And they were not done enough to be the kind of onion I eat. I don't eat raw onions, and those were still pretty raw. So chop them! To ensure they get cooked. Ours got thrown back on the grill (chopped) and we gobbled them up later. Make sure to peel your eggplant, if not sometimes the skin gets tough when it's grilled (depending on the type of eggplant).
Play with the marinade. I made mine out of things I had on hand. I was out of lemon juice or would have thrown that in, too.
Serve it with brown rice or whatever other carb you have on hand. We eat a lot of stir fry around here so rice seemed like the obvious choice (and I had it in the leftover section of the fridge).
Since we don't eat meat, we often forget we have a grill. After these, I'll remember and with an indoor grill, you don't have to wait for nice weather to do it!
