Kebabs

I know that lots of people love grilled meats, like my friend Joni, who I wrote about in an earlier post. Being still fairly new at meat-eating, I am not so much in that camp. There is one concoction, though, that I do often enjoy and that's kebabs.

After reading Brian Geiger's recent article in Fine Cooking about marinades and all that they can and cannot do, I decided to put together a marinade of buttermilk, lots of fresh herbs, garlic, salt and pepper. Then I put in chunks of skinless chicken thigh and chicken breast and let it sit for a couple of hours. I roasted some zucchini rounds with olive oil, salt, pepper and a little Penzey's Brady Street cheese sprinkle and some Roma hot house tomatoes with olive oil, salt and dried oregano. Then I threaded the chicken on skewers with the pre-roasted zucchini and tomatoes (I like my kebab vegetables to be cooked through) and I stacked the loaded skewers on a plate and took it outside to the waiting, hot, charcoal-filled grill.

I put three of the dark-meat skewers on and saw that that was all I could put on over hot coals. I guess that I had waited too long because the coals had diminished considerably. My husband and I worked together to lift the grate up to put more charcoal in the grill, but we didn't have potholders and the stick and tongs that I picked the grate up with failed me and down went two of the lovely kebabs. As I am wont to do, I shrieked a bit. I only had nine skewers to start with, so two down was a considerable portion. But then I got it together and grilled what was left and brought out a bunch more little meat bits not on skewers and all was well again.

I had made Rose Levy Bernbaum's pasta salad, from her Rose's Celebrations book, with quinoa pasta, beans cooked from dried, fresh herbs, oil-cured sun-dried tomatoes, a Vidalia onion, and U.S.-grown corn on the cob, which just started showing up in stores last week. I cut a part of a watermelon into wedges. I roasted a sweet potato that I had cut into oven fries. And there was our Sunday feast.

The kids were not too happy with it, but I sure was. The meat was properly cooked through, with charred spots, the vegetables were flavorful and tender, the salad was a great accompaniment, the watermelon was so refreshing after a winter and spring with none. Yes, an affirmation that kebabs are my favorite grilled dinner. I'm so glad it's finally summer again.