Citrus Chicken Kabobs

1 pound fresh broccoli, broken into florets
2 large navel oranges
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, cut into 1 inch cubes
4 plum tomatoes, quartered
1 large onion, cut into wedges
Glaze:  1/4 cup barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons honey
Place 1 inch of water in a large saucepan; add broccoli.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 3-4 minutes or until crisp/tender.  Drain.  Cut each orange into eight wedges.  On eight metal or soaked wooden skewers, alternately thread chicken, vegetables and oranges.  In a small bowl, combine the glaze ingredients. 
Coat grill rack with nonstick cooking spray before starting the grill.  Grill kabobs, uncovered, over medium heat for 5-7 minutes on each side or until chicken juices run clear, turning once.  Brush frequently with glaze.  4 servings

These chicken kabobs were a winner!  The sauce you make to go over them is really good.  This is a good dish to grill out in the summertime.  The recipe called for the broccoli florets to be cooked crisp/tender and then you layer them on the skewers but it didn't work for me.  The broccoli was too tender and just fell apart.  I think I will just leave them raw next time and they should soften up a bit after they have been on the grill while the chicken is cooking.  Another thing I would do is double the sauce because I think it would be nice to brush on a bit more right after you have taken them off the grill and before you serve them.  This dish went well with the Strawberry and Orange Pasta Salad that I made today.  The Citrus Chicken Kabob recipe is from the Taste of Home Grilling Cookbook.  Enjoy!

Strawberry-Orange Pasta Salad

2 cups farfalle (bow tie pasta)
1/3 cup Kraft Creamy Poppy seed Dressing
1/4 cup Kraft Real Mayonnaise
4 green onions, sliced
1 can (11 ounces) mandarin oranges, drained
1 cup sliced fresh strawberries
Cook pasta as directed on package, omitting salt, drain, cool.
Mix dressing and mayo in medium bowl.  Add pasta and onions, toss to coat.  Gently stir in fruit.
Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.

Ok ladies, your gonna love this one!   This is a great cold pasta salad for summertime!  It is refreshing, sweet and light.  Very easy to make and colorful on top of that!  I LOVE poppy seed dressing on fruit of any kind so this recipe really appealed to me when I saw that it called for it.  I love mandarin oranges and strawberries too so this was a win win for me!  Now here is the shocking part so call Ripley's cuz you ain't gonna believe this...... my husband LOVED it!  He ate three helpings.  Poppy seed dressing on a cold pasta salad with fruit.  Yep, he lapped it right up.   This recipe came from a Kraft food magazine, not the grilling cookbook. 

Grilled Pork Chops with Basil-Garlic Rub

4 pork bone-in rib shops 3/4 inch thick
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 cup fresh basil leaves, packed
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon course salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
With machine running, drop garlic through feed tube of food processor to mince.  Stop, add fresh basil and process until chopped.  Add lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper; process to make thin wet rub.  Spread both sides of pork chops with basil mixture.  Let stand 15 to 30 minutes.
Prepare medium hot fire in grill.  Brush grate clean and oil the grate.  Grill chops over direct heat, turning once, to medium rare doneness, 5 to 6 minutes per side or until internal temperature reaches 145 degrees followed by 3 minutes rest.  Serves 4

Nice tasty pork chop, easy to prepare and had good flavor.  It would have been nice if I could have cooked mine out on the grill but halfway through the cooking the grill ran out of gas.  (Story of my life!)  I finished them under the broiler which didn't affect the flavor but they were missing that grilled out taste.  I used fresh basil that I grow out on my patio which was kind of a pain to chop up because the leaves don't strip off the stem as easy as say rosemary.  It also takes a lot of basil so I added some I had in a jar in the spice cabinet.  Anyway, the rub was easy to make in a food chopper/processor and you just apply it to both sides of the chops and grill.  Easy, pretty and yummy!  Oh, this recipe didn't come out of the Taste of Home Grilling Cookbook.  I found it in the pile of recipes that I tear out of magazines before I discard them so I am sorry to report that I cannot tell you where the recipe came from but don't hold that against me!

Crowd Pleasing Scalloped Potatoes

1 tub (8 ounces) Philadelphia Chive and Onion Cream Cheese Spread
2 cups fat-free, reduced sodium chicken broth
1 cup milk
10 slices Oscar Mayer Bacon, cooked, crumbled and divided
4 1/2 lb. Yukon gold potatoes (about 12), cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 cup Kraft 2% Milk Shredded Colby and Monterrey Jack Cheeses
Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Cook first 3 ingredients in saucepan on medium heat until cream cheese spread is melted and mixture comes to boil, stirring constantly with whisk.
Reserve 2 tablespoons bacon.  Layer half each of the potatoes, onions and remaining bacon in 13X9 inch baking dish; repeat layers.  Add cream cheese sauce; cover.  Bake 1 1/2 hours or until potatoes are tender and top is golden brown, uncovering and topping with shredded cheese and reserved bacon for the last 10 minutes. 

This dish made the house smell so good while it was cooking.  It also makes a huge amount too so if you are having a "crowd" this would be a perfect dish.  It was easy to prepare and was a pleaser at my house.  Who doesn't love scalloped potatoes!  On a scale of 1-10 I'd give it a 9.5! This recipe came from a Kraft recipe magazine, not the Taste of Home Grilling Cookbook.

Jalapeno Grilled Chicken

4 to 8 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped or 1 can (4 ounces) chopped green chilies
2/3 cup lemon juice, divided
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley or 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
6 to 10 garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons dried rosemary, crushed
2 teaspoons dried thyme
8 bone-in chicken breast halves
2/3 cup chicken broth
2 teaspoons pepper
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
In a bowl, combine the peppers, 1/3 cup lemon juice, parsley, garlic, rosemary and thyme.  Gently stuff pepper mixture under the skin of each chicken breast.  Place in a greased 13 X 9 X 2 baking dish.  Combine the broth, pepper, lemon peel and remaining lemon juice; pour over chicken.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hours.  Drain and discard marinade.  Place the chicken skin side up on grill.  Grill, covered, over medium heat for 45 minutes or until the juices run clear, turning once.  8 servings. 

This recipe looked impressive during the marinating process and the grilling process but I have to say that when we dove into it it was just a good piece of grilled chicken.  I really didn't get a huge jalapeno flavor in every bit like I thought I would.  You could see all of the jalapeno mixture stuffed under the skin so you would expect the flavors to come through in the meat.  I'm stumped here because there was a lot of ingredients going in to this dish and it was marinated for over 6 hours.  In the past, when I have baked chicken with a rub under the skin, it called for a lot of butter.  (Must have been a Paula Deen recipe).  I think that these ingredients, together with some butter, would help marry the flavors so that you would get a tasty, delicious bite every time.  I would be willing to try this recipe again but I think next time I would like to try it with a whole chicken and roast it in the oven with butter added to the jalapeno stuffing.  Also, this recipe didn't call for any salt which I added to the chicken before it was grilled so if I was going to bake this chicken it would definitely need to be salted before going into the oven.  I grilled six large chicken breast to make this dish and they were very juicy and tender, I just wish that the jalapeno flavor would have made more of a statement. 

This week’s featured cookbook: Taste of Home–Backyard Grilling

This week I will be chewing and reviewing a few recipes from this great grilling cookbook.  My son Marshall gave me this book for Mother’s Day and it has some really great looking recipes in it.  I just wish he was home this week to help me try them out!  He is still at school taking summer classes.  So proud of my little rockhound!

Tacos on a Stick

1 envelope taco seasoning
1 cup tomato  juice
2 to 4 tbsp. vegetable oil
2 pounds boneless beef top sirloin, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 medium green pepper, cut into chunks
1 medium sweet red pepper, cut into chunks
1 large onion, cut into wedges
16 cherry tomatoes
In a large resealable plastic bag, combine the taco seasoning, tomato juice and oil; mix well.  Remove 1/2 cup for basting; refrigerate.  Add beef to the bag; seal and turn to coat.  Refrigerate for at least 5 hours. 

Drain and discard marinade from beef.  On metal or soaked wooden skewers, alternately thread beef, peppers, onion and tomatoes.  Grill, uncovered, over medium heat for 3 minutes on each side.  Baste with reserved marinade.  Continue turning and basting for 8-10 minutes or until meat reaches desired doneness.  6 servings

                                                                                        

I think that the next time I make this dish I will use the mild or spicy taco seasoning instead of the regular.  It was good but the meat could have used just a scosh more spice for my taste.  This was super easy to prepare.  It is pretty much your typical shish kabob but with a Mexican twist.  I served it with Spanish rice, guacamole and a spicy side salad made with mixed field greens, pico de gallo, a sprinkling of taco flavored shredded cheese, crumbled tortilla chips (for croutons) and spicy ranch dressing.  Yummmm!