Kabobs are one of my favorite summer foods. They are a fun socializing food. Your family and guests get a chance to interact with each other and their food.
- Meat choices for kabobs are beef cubes or strips, chicken breast cubes, pork strips, lamb cubes, shrimp with tails on, scallops, and liver strips.
- Vegetables for kabobs are green, red and yellow bell peppers, onion wedges, zucchini rounds, fresh whole mushrooms, cherry tomatoes or tomato wedges, partially cooked small potatoes.
- Pineapple chunks add a sweet taste to kabobs.
Grilling kabobs requires more prep time, cutting up the meat and vegetables, but its fun to let your guests make their own kabobs by choosing the meat and vegetables and then grilling them. Always use an oven mit when turning kabobs as the skewers get very hot.
Brush meat and vegetable kabobs with Italian Salad Dressing and sprinkle with Watkins Garlic Salt. You can also brush with olive oil or melted butter or margarine mixed with your favorite Watkins herbs and spices such as rosemary, thyme, dill, basil, ginger, oregano, sage, parsley, curry powder, marjoram, cayenne pepper and sprinkle with garlic salt, seasoning salt, or onion salt.
- Sage, thyme, ginger, rosemary, and garlic powder or salt go good with chicken, pork, or lamb.
- Curry powder and dill go good with lamb.
- Rosemary, basil, parsley, marjoram, oregano, and garlic powder or salt go good with beef.
- Curry powder, parsley, garlic salt, cayenne pepper go good with shrimp and scallops.
- Dill, basil, thyme, garlic, onion, or season salt go good with vegetables.
Choose the herbs and spices for your taste preference.
For extra flovor, during the last 20 minutes brush with barbecue sauce, steak sauce, soy sauce, glaze, or lemon juice for shrimp and scallops.
Serve with cooked white, brown, or wild rice.
Uncooked fruit and cheese kabobs make appetizers and light desserts. Cut various kinds of cheese into cubes. Alternate on wood skewers with pieces of fruit, such as grapes, strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, kiwi, pears, and apples.
Grilling Tips
- When cooking skewered meat or vegetables, cut your food into equal-sized pieces to ensure even cooking. It’s also helpful to make sure that the pieces are too big to fall through the cracks in the grill.
- Cook meat and vegetables on separate skewers because of variations in cooking time.
- Use metal or wood skewers. If using wood skewers soak in cold water for 30 minutes before grilling to prevent them from burning. The shorter wood skewers are good for grilling appetizers. Rosemary stems can also be used for skewers. They impart a rosemary flavor to food. Soak in cold water before using.
- If you choose to marinate your meat, do so for two or three hours prior to cooking. Marinating tenderizes the meat and reduces cooking time. Do not marinate beef over night or it will start to cure and turn gray.
- Brush sauces onto the food only during the last 20 minutes of grilling. Applying sauces earlier can lead to overbrowning or burning.
- Don’t put cooked meat on the same plate used to carry raw meat. This can cause bacterial contamination. The same rule applies to cooking utensils. Use one set of tongs to pick up raw meat and a separate set of tongs to pick up cooked meat.
Eleisia Whitney is a Watkins Home Business owner. She enjoys cooking and baking with Watkins extracts, spices, herbs, and sauces for healthy meals. Eleisia publishes a Watkins Newsletter, Around the Kitchen Table, that brings you recipes, cooking and health tips, and contests for free Watkins products.
Read the current issue at http://www.everydaynecessities.com/may15-07newsletter.htm
Visit her at http://www.everydaynecessities.com and
http://www.WatkinsOnline.com/eleisiawhitney
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