Monday, September 2, 2013

Grilled Chicken & Vegetable Kabobs

My husband, Ted, is an amazing cook, and used to do a lot of the cooking in our house before our son, Charlie, was born. But with working longer hours and now having a child that needs to eat pretty early, we don't get to eat Ted's awesome food very often. Well, with a little bit of extra time over this Labor Day weekend, he got to cook, and made one of my favorites: grilled chicken  and vegetable kabobs! And we had great friends over to enjoy this dinner with us.





When he makes kabobs, he makes separate vegetable-only skewers and chicken-only skewers.  That way, the chicken can cook through evenly without over-cooking or charring the vegetables too much. When the chicken is on the same skewer as the vegetables, the chicken is not cooked enough in the middle when the vegetables reach their appropriate level of doneness (in our opinion, anyway!). 



We served the kabobs with a choice of white or brown rice (I prefer brown rice if we make only one kind of rice on a normal day).

Grilled Chicken Kabobs

Ingredients

2 pounds organic free range chicken breasts
2 tsp curry powder
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp ground ginger
Salt to taste 
Pepper to taste
2 small packages whole white button mushrooms
1 large red onion
2 organic bell peppers (any color)
1 small package cherry tomatoes
1 small bottle light balsamic vinaigrette dressing, for marinating vegetables

12-inch wooden skewers

Directions

1. Rinse and dry all vegetables. Chop red onion and bell peppers into 1-inch and place onions, peppers, mushrooms and tomatoes in large mixing bowl and pour balsamic dressing over vegetables. Stir until evenly coated in dressing. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.

2. Slice chicken into 1-inch strips and place in gallon-size sealable plastic bag. Add curry powder, garlic powder, ground ginger, salt, and pepper and seal bag. Shake bag to evenly coat chicken in seasonings.

3. Place vegetables and chicken in refrigerator to marinate for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

4. Place wooden skewers in rectangular baking dish and add water until skewers are completely submerged. Set aside to soak for 30 minutes.



5. Remove vegetables and chicken from refrigerator. Thread chicken strips onto separate skewers from vegetables. Each chicken skewer should hold about 3-4 strips of chicken threaded onto them.



6. To assemble the vegetable skewers, pierce vegetables in the center, placing them on the skewers in desired order.



7. Preheat outdoor grill. Place skewers on grill to cook. The chicken takes about 20 minutes to cook through, turning about 4 times. The vegetables are done when you can easily cut through the mushrooms without resistance, about 15 minutes, turning 3 times.

8. Serve with rice and enjoy!




What are the nutritional benefits of this meal? Chicken is an excellent source of protein and is rich in B vitamins. Bell peppers are one of the best food sources of vitamins A and C. Tomatoes are an excellent source of lycopene and vitamin C. Red onions are rich in quercetin, a type of antioxidant, as well as vitamins and minerals, including vitamins C, K, folate, thiamin, and minerals calcium, magnesium, potassium and manganese. Mushrooms  are an excellent source of minerals selenium and potassium as well vitamins riboflavin, and niacin, and are the only item you will find in the produce section that supplies some vitamin D!

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