Skewered and Askewed

The first week back in the States after travelling overseas felt awkward. I thought that by thinking, "Jet lag, what's that?", I'd be able to ignore the issue and feel completely settled in. Alas, that was not to be. I felt completely upside down all week. I've been busy trying to get caught up with the hundreds of emails (work and personal) and stacks of papers that piled up in my absence, and in doing so, there was no time to buy groceries and fix up a proper meal. Now that I want to cook to start the week right, I have to be out of town again; there's no point in buying groceries, not have time or be around to do anything with them, and let things spoil for no good reason.

At least I feel committed to cooking. As long as I have a particular dish in mind, I'll get motivated to work on it. This is the same situation as what occurred before I left for my trip--I somehow got fixated on the idea of making kabobs because it was easy, filling, and delicious, so even though I was tired after getting home from work, I went ahead and did it. This recipe is great for working professionals because the labor can be split into different days, and if the portions are small, less prep time is needed. Also, if you know in advance that you need to feed a small army on the next day, kabobs look great and are generally crowdpleasers.

The concept is simple--cut up the meat one night, marinate it, put it on skewers on the next day along with some veggies, and grill or broil. The process really is that simple. However, it can be a bit time-consuming. The bamboo skewers had to soak for 30 minutes before use (so that they won't burn), and while that was being done, I washed and cut up a bunch of veggies. Since the value pack of sirloin I got was a bit short of 2 pounds of meat, it took a while to get them all skewered up. It was pretty fun to try and come up with different configurations so that no two skewers were exactly the same:



Cooking was very quick and easy--drizzle some olive oil on the kabobs, broil one side for 5 minutes, turn, and broil some more until the desired level of doneness (another 5-10 minutes). It was delicious, and I had enough food for lunch and dinner for almost a week.



Now I have to figure out what to cook next time...