Easy Shish Kebabs

Shish kebabs are my absolute favourite summer dinner. Grilled onions are some of the best things I've ever tasted and... well, I like it all. And I have a recipe from my dad for you that makes shish kebabs easy to do on a busy day or on short notice.

You will need the following ingredients:


-1lb beef, cut into chunks
-1 yellow onion
-1 green bell pepper
-1 bottle Italian dressing (zesty, creamy, whatever your preference)
-Shish kebab sticks

Absolute FIRST THING you should do is, if you have wooden shish kebab sticks, soak them. If you don't they will burn while you are grilling. Just stick them in water and don't take them out until I tell you to.

On to business.

Italian dressing is no good on salads, in my opinion. I loved it when I was younger, but now I just think it is too salty and it covers the taste of the yummy veggies. However, due to its saltiness, it does make a pretty good marinade.

So, what you're going to do is lightly, lightly salt your beef chunks and marinate them in Italian dressing. You can do this for as little as fifteen minutes or as long as all day.

Now, I personally recommend marinating for around 3-5 hours. However, you might want to tweak that time depending on the size of your beef chunks and the amount of time you actually have to make this. We left it all day with relatively small beef chunks and my husband said he would have preferred a slightly milder flavour.

As for the vegetables, chop them into large chunks (and please feel free to grill whatever vegetables you want - onions and green peppers are just my personal favourites and I don't like grilled tomatoes at all).

I recommend marinating them for a shorter time than the beef because it's more about moistening then than anything else. If you grill dry veggies they get black and crispy, which to me equals burnt. We marinated the veggies for around a half hour and they were perfect.

Okay, photo credit for the next two photos goes to my husband. While I put the baby to sleep, he kindly impaled, grilled and photographed the shish kebabs.

So, as I put it, next you should impale the meat, onions and peppers on the shish kebab sticks (note: I believe the word "shish" or şiş means "stick" in Turkish). You can either put all one ingredient on one "shish" or alternate them. My husband chose to alternate:
They should take about 12-15 minutes to cook through (longer if you don't want any pink on the inside). Turn them once about halfway through.

My husband proposes the alternate "Iranian way" which is turning them constantly. While it is more work, he says that this way the juices don't fall off.

I recommend serving your shish kebabs over rice and with a light salad. If there are leftovers, you could try stir-frying them!

Enjoy!

THIS RECIPE IS:

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Boring version of recipe instructions:

Cut beef and vegetables into large chunks and marinate in Italian dressing for desired amount of time. Not forgetting to soak wooden shish kebab sticks beforehand, put veggies and meat on sticks. Grill 12-15 minutes, turning once.