Shish Kebarbeque Kebobs

I don’t know if other parts of the country have been experiencing this, but the weather in Southwest Michigan for the last few weeks has been… disappointing. I mean, it’s JUNE for crying out loud! We’ve had so very much rain and so many cool days. I was really getting tired of it. That’s April and May weather, NOT summer weather! But I believe the worst is finally over and you can thank my friends and me for that. We did the opposite of a rain dance to usher in the sunshine: a grill out.

Donnie and I try to host grill outs on a pretty regular basis. We have the space, we have the time, and we have a grill, which is more than a lot of people are age can say (priorities are a funny thing, aren’t they?). However, this grill out was not hosted by us. It was hosted by my friend Kasper who had the sensational idea of doing shish kebabs instead of burgers! Maybe some people out there do this on the regular, but for some reason, doing kebabs on the grill with a big group had never crossed my mind. I’m guessing Kasper was inspired by his recent trip to the Middle East. Regardless, it worked out so well. I was in charge of telling people what to bring, so instead of having them bring cheese slices or buns, they brought peppers, onions, pineapple, summer squash and so on. We whipped up a couple of marinades, built our kebabs and totally enjoyed hanging out while they cooked.

It was one successful shish-kebarbeque (as we took to calling it) and it was even documented and rapped about by my other half. If you’re interested, you can view the video on my facebook page under the videos I’m tagged in.

Anyway, I’m not just sharing this so I can brag about the awesome time we had. I’m sharing because you can recreate the same kebabs at home, whether you have a bunch of friends over or not. The following recipe is just what we used, but you can really get creative with it. I’m not going to tell you amounts, because it really depends on how much of any particular thing you’d like to use. And when it comes to the veggie meat, pretty much anything that’ll stay on a stick will do. We had a few options, but Worthington Super-Links seemed to be the favorite! Where the marinade is concerned, I mixed up a homemade one based on a recipe I got off of the Foodnetwork website, but the store bought one Kasper provided was really good too. It doesn’t really matter, as long as you have SOME kind of marinade to slather on.

Also, there’s a few different ways you could do this: on the grill, in the oven, or even on the stove (I draw the line at the microwave…). Check the tips following the recipe for oven/stove instructions.

Shish Kebarbeque Kebobs

Kebabs
Peppers (we used red, yellow and green)
Onions (we used red and white)
Zucchini
Summer Squash
Baby potatoes
Mushrooms
Pineapple
Grape Tomatoes
Veggie Meat (we had Super-Links, Chic-ketts, Grillers, and Worthington vegetable steaks)
Kebab skewers

Marinade
3 Tbls vegetable oil
1 tsp ceyenne powder
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
3 Tbls lime juice
2 Tbls water
2 Tbls fresh cilantro, chopped (use 1 tsp if dry)
1 Tbls tomato paste
1 1/2 tsp honey
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt, to taste

If using wooden skewers, follow prep directions (you’ll probably need to soak them).

In a small bowl, mix marinade ingredients together until smooth.

Boil potatoes until you’re able to easily pierce them with a fork, but they’re not quite soft enough to eat (about 10-12 minutes).

Cut peppers, onions, zucchini, summer squash, potatoes, pineapple and veggie meat into kebab size pieces (no smaller than a square inch and no larger than two square inches).

Skewer desired ingredients, lather on marinade with a basting brush and lay over hot grill. Watch cafefully and turn occasionally until desired tenderness is reached (this totally depends on how hot your grill is, but the marinade should be partially soaked into the veggies).

Tips: If you don’t have a grill, one option is to roast them in the oven. While I haven’t tried this yet, I would set the oven to 425, and either lay them out on a greased roasting pan, wrap them in foil, or lay them on a pan with parchment paper. I’m guessing they’d need at least 35 minutes, but probably more. If you happen to have a grilling pan for the stove, that will work great too. Searing them in a regular, well-oiled pan would work, but it would take a while. If you want to try that, I would cook them at no higher than medium heat and maybe cover them part of the time. Like I mentioned before, you can really go nuts with ingredients, if you can skewer it, you can grill it. I think an all fruit kebab with a sweet, buttery marinade could be amazing. I’ll let you know if I ever try that.

Their vegan pants are on fire...

I just found this article on the Huffington Post website. Apparently VegNews magazine was using pictures of (gasp!) REAL MEAT. I actually think it's pretty funny, but apparently some people were seriously upset. It's a short article, so give it a read and tell me what you think. Would this make you mad?


http://www.slashfood.com/2011/04/14/vegan-magazines-faux-meat-recipe-photos-actually-real-meat/

You can also check out the original article from quarrygirl.com here.

Beef Chili with Bob's Red Mill TVP

I don’t know about you, but I usually try to avoid eating things that sound like chemical compounds or plastic materials. Seems like a good rule to live by, right? I’m sure it is about 99% of the time, but this weekend I made an exception for TVP.

Even when you use it’s real name, Textured Vegetable Protein, is still doesn’t sound like something you’d want to cook with. But in fact, you do. At least I do. I’ve had recipes that use TVP over the years and experienced varying degrees of enjoyment (tamales were a winner!), but this was actually my first time preparing it and here’s why I think you’d like to cook with it too:

A) It’s inexpensive – I’m sure this would depend on where you got it and who made it, but my name brand Bob’s Red Mill TVP set me back two dollars and change at the local grocer, and it was a pretty good sized package. A can of the same amount of veggie ground beef would cost, oh I don’t know, five times as much?

B) It’s versatile: While Bob’s only makes one sort of TVP (ground beef-like in appearance), my local health food store sells several different versions, colored and shaped to look like various meat products. I’m guessing you can buy it pre-flavored as well, but Bob’s brand was ready to be whatever I wanted it to be, which was nice.

C) It’s healthy: This stuff is legit. Low in calories. Fat free. Only TWO mg of sodium (yeah, you read that right), while still packing in 4 grams of fiber, 12 grams of protein and 15% of your daily iron in just one serving.

I rest my case.

Now I know it’s not really chili season, but I had some tomatoes and beans to use up, and I figured it would be a foolproof way to test out the TVP for the first time. Luckily I was right. The textured vegetable protein made the chili hearty, but not heavy and the summer squash freshened it up while adding some nice color as well. It was a winning batch. Since I’d never used the TVP before, I started by preparing it according to the package, just to see what it was like. But for this recipe, just throw it into the water unless you’re curious like me.

Beef Chili with Bob’s Red Mill TVP

Serves 4-6

4 c water

1 c TVP dry

1 can black beans

1 small or medium onion, chopped

2 large cloves of garlic, minced

3 Tbls vegetarian beef seasoning (I used McKays)

1 Tbls taco seasoning

1 large tomato, chopped

1 summer squash, chopped

1 handful of fresh cilantro, chopped

salt

In a large pot over medium heat, add water, TVP, beans, onion, garlic and beef and taco seasonings. Cook until onions are beginning to soften, stirring frequently.

Add tomatoes and squash and continue cooking for another five minutes or so.

Add cilantro, then taste and add salt to your liking.

Tips: Since the beef seasoning and taco seasoning are pretty salty, you may not need to add any

additional salt. My taco seasoning was hot, so I didn’t need to add any extra spice, but you can always throw in some minced jalapeno (or other hot pepper), red pepper flakes, or cayenne. If you don’t have taco seasoning (or don’t like using prepackaged goods), just use a combo of cayenne, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper. It’ll get the job done. You can also add whatever other vegetables you need to use up. The more the merrier with chili (and most soups). Just be

sure to think about how fast they’ll cook and when you’ll need to add them.