Happy Labor Day!
Why is it that the three day weekends seem to pass along by more quickly than the regular two-day variety? This year, the fam-in-law was in town for the Labor Day weekend. We hadn’t planned much for the weekend, thinking that we’d play things by ear. Highlights were a day trip into New York City, and a dinner at our favorite local restaurant by the railroad tracks. We also spent a lot of time in pajamas watching movies, out and about doin’-a-little-shoppin’, and even managed to squeeze in a little bit of craft time.
Even with all that, though, the majority of the weekend was spent eating –- hands down! If we weren’t eating, we were thinking about eating, or deciding where to eat, or talking about what we ate, or shopping for ingredients to cook. You know the drill. I’m going to highlight the guest of honor of today’s barbecue: Asian Style Kabobs, which were served alongside one of our favorite (and easy) tomato salads, a plate of dressed cucumbers, grilled pineapple, and a big bowl of brown rice. Here’s what we did:
Asian Style Kabobs
The prep started early in the day (well, o.k. about 11:00, early for the weekend?) with a 3# London broil, which I cubed into one inch pieces. I made the following marinade in the bottom of a 9 inch square baking dish which would eventually be used as the soaking vessel. First, I whisked together 3T creamy peanut butter, 2T hoisin sauce, 1/3c tamari (or you could substitute soy sauce), 3 cloves of garlic, minced, and 1t each of the following: seedless blackberry jam (you could use grape, too or just leave it out), raspberry balsamic vinegar, and toaseted sesame oil. I thinned down the pasty mixture with 3/4c ginger ale (I used Reed’s Extra Ginger Brew, but any ginger ale would do), and spiced it up with 1/2t red pepper flakes and a few dashes of tobasco sauce.
By now you are probably beginning to realize that the thought process behind making this marinade was more of, “let’s throw a little bit of this, and as little bit of that together,” rather than having some great culinary vision that I was trying to execute (see what a well stocked pantry can allow you to do?), nonetheless, it turned out great, which is why I’m sharing.
I added the beef chunks to the tub, making sure that the were all tucked beneath the liquid’s surface, covered the pan with plastic wrap and placed him in the fridge for a healthy six (or so) hours.
Before firing up the grill, we cut up the kabob veggies into one inch squares: 1 red onion, 4 bell peppers (all from the garden), and a pound of mushrooms. The veggies and the marinated meat cubes were staked upon (soaked) wooden skewers. Two skewers per kabob makes them easier to manage, and separating the veggies and meat onto their own skewers makes managing cooking times and temperatures much easier.
I set up the grill with a hot and cool side, and brought the whole grill up to 450°F. I cooked the meat kabobs over the hot coals for about 8 minutes, and the veggies over the “cool” ones for about the same time.
We (painfully) let the kabobs stand for 10 minutes, before removing the meaty morsels from their skewers, and then dug in.
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