This is also perfect to share on a bright sunny day on chairs in your backyard or on your deck.

Mini Beef Skewers

½ pound sirloin steak cut into bite size pieces
1 clove garlic crushed
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mix all of the ingredients together well and marinate overnight, refrigerated.

Remove the beef from the refrigerator and skewer one eight of the meat onto each of 8 skewers. Discard the marinade and allow the meat to sit at room temperature for 1 hour before grilling.

Lamb Kebobs

½ pound lamb chops, meat removed from the bone and cut into bite size pieces
½ tsp fresh rosemary, removed from the stem and finely chopped
1small clove garlic crushed
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon olive oil

Mix all of the ingredients together well and marinate overnight, refrigerated.

Remove the lamb from the refrigerator and skewer one eight of the meat onto each of 8 skewers. Discard the marinade and allow the meat to sit at room temperature for 1 hour before grilling.

Shrimp Skewers

½ pound shrimp, shells removed and cleaned being sure that all of the dark vein that runs down the back is fully removed
Melted butter as required
Skewer 2 – 3 shrimp on each skewer and set aside. Just before grilling brush with the melted butter.

Mini Teriyaki Pork Skewers

½ pound pork tenderloin, trimmed of silverskin and cut into bite size pieces
Teriyaki sauce as required

Using small skewers, skewer all of the marinated meat and the shrimp keeping them all on separate skewers. BBQ the skewers until the meat is done the way your guests like and the prawns and pork are cooked through. Cook one side of the pork first, flip over and brush the cooked side with the teriyaki sauce. Grill on the remaining side, flip again and brush the remaining side with the teriyaki sauce. Grill for 1 minute longer just to set the sauce.

Serve the beef skewers with blue cheese dressing for dipping, the pork with some of the teriyaki sauce, the shrimp with melted garlic butter and lots of lemons and the lamb with tzatziki sauce.

Tzatziki

1 cups good quality yogurt

Place the yogurt in cheesecloth or a coffee filter to drain until approximately ½ of the whey has drained off. Retain the whey to adjust the consistency of the Tzatziki. You can skip this step by using either a Greek or Balkin style yogurt.

½ cup cucumber, grated and squeezed to remove water
1 clove garlic, minced
1 Tablespoon red onion, finely diced, soaked in cold water for 10 minutes, drained
⅛ tsp salt or to taste

Combine the onions, garlic and cucumber well with the strained yogurt and mix together.

Taste and adjust the seasoning and consistency of the dip by adding some of the reserved whey to the dip.

4 ears of corn
2 tablespoons butter
½ tsp Chipotle flakes

Shuck the corn being careful to remove all of the silk as well. Mix the butter and the chipotle seasoning together well and liberally apply the butter to the corn. Grill the ears of corn alongside the chicken. Pass with more of the butter.

Foil wrapped potatoes

12 small new potatoes, scrubbed clean
Salt and pepper as required
8 pearl onions, peeled
1 tablespoon butter

Place a large piece of foil on the counter and then add all of the above to it. Fold the foil well over the potatoes sealing to be sure that the package will not leak during cooking. Place the package in the BBQ over high heat. Turn the package over frequently to avoid burning the contents. Cook for approximately 20 minutes.

To serve open up the package and serve directly from the foil. No cleanup required!

Grilled peaches with a fresh blueberry sauce

photo

Fresh blueberry sauce

2 cups fresh blueberries, washed and picked over to remove stems, etc
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
¼ cup sugar

Put everything in a small pan over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a simmer, cover and cook just until the berries have started to break down and are starting to form a sauce. Don’t overcook the berries. Taste and add more sugar if you like. Cool well before serving.

4 fresh peaches
Butter as required
4 tsp brown sugar

Cut a small cross on the bottom side of each peach. Plunge the peaches into boiling water for 10 seconds only. Remove from the boiling water and immediately transfer the peaches to an ice bath. Let the peaches sit in the ice bath for 1 minute. Remove the peaches from the ice bath and gently remove the skins. The skin should just slide off the peaches if they are ripe enough.

Cut the peaches in half and remove the stone. Brush the cut side of the peaches with the butter and then grill the peaches, cut side down just until they have nice grill marks. Rotate the peaches 90° and continue to grill for a couple more minutes. Turn the peaches grilled side up and sprinkle with the brown sugar. Grill with the cut side up just until the sugar has melted and the bottoms of the peaches are starting to turn brown. Flip the peach halves over and grill just for another 30 seconds just to caramelize the sugar.

To serve, place 2 halves on a serving plate. Add small scoops of ice cream just to fill the holes where the stones were. Drizzle the peaches and ice cream with the blueberry sauce, garnish with a rosette of whipped cream and serve immediately. 

Cathie Hamilton
Certified Culinary Scientist
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