Gourmet Kabobs

Go ahead!  Click on this photo to see it up close … then click again to ZOOM in!  Take a real good look.  If you close your eyes you can even SMELL the meat cooking on the grill.  For folks who miss the meat in their vegan lifestyle, this mixed grill with “lamb” and “chicken” will bring a tear to your eye.  It was one of those days when everything just worked well.  My kids were an amazing help.  We had mouth watering hummus, babaganoush and tzatziki.  Oh and did I mention the home made whole grain spelt pita pockets?  Everything a vegetarian would order from a good mediteranian restaurant.  But what about the grilled kabobs?  If we are lucky our favorite take-out place will offer a “vegetarian” kabob with a few grilled vegetables.  But when the veggie-entrée comes close to the price of the lamb grill it just doesn’t seem like a good value.  So tonight, we decided to make our own mixed meat kabobs!!

The recipe was simple, start with the basic seidan medallians from  our cookbook, The 30-Day Vegetarian. For tonight’s grill, I divided the raw seitan pieces into two different simmering pots.  For the “lamb” I used a combination of decaffinated black tea, pickling spice, sea salt and a few tablespoons of ketchup plus some aromatics including onion and carrots.  (Don’t leave the tea bags in the pot after they have steeped for about 5 minutes.)    For the “chicken” we used some sweet onion, sliced carrot and a good pinch of dried saffron.  The yellow broth was flavorful and gave the chickie the perfect color for our kabob.

When the seitan was done we paired the meat with some fresh mushrooms, sliced onion and fresh pineapple.  We used a simple baste of honey, tamari and butter (margarine if you are serving a vegan meal.)   But the real flavor came from our cast iron grill.  Wow.  Just a minute or two on each side was enough to leave those amazing grill marks and fill the whole house with an aroma that made our guests wonder if they were still in a vegetarian home!

Should I tell you about the no-bake sugar free blueberry pie?  🙂  As is often the mantra at our kitchen table … We Eat Well!

Babaganoush

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