My oldest loves to learn about other countries and cultures. She often checks out books at the library about countries she would like to experience. This year in CC we are studying ancient civilizations and many of her books have coordinated a great deal with our curriculum. My sweet children are a lot like their mother. They love to relate to anything through food, and they have been asking most of the school year to cook some of the food from one of these books.
I agreed to let her choose a meal for dinner. She and her brother wanted lamb kebobs from Turkey. I love lamb, but I’ve never been brave enough to cook it myself. With our budget, I couldn’t imagine spending the money for the lamb and not cooking it properly. I managed to convince them that we should try the recipe with chicken instead. Chicken is so far from lamb it’s ridiculous, and part of me felt really horrible about it. I told them we would still use the same spices and flavorings. I forgot the oregano at the store, so we made some adjustments with Italian seasoning. It may not be authentic to the book, but this recipe was inspired by a recipe from the book on Turkey.
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 lbs. boneless chicken breasts cut into cubes
- salt to taste
- 1 onion, peeled and quartered
- 3/4 c olive oil
- 1/3 c lemon juice
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 3 Tbsp. dried Italian seasoning
- 2 Tbsp. course ground pepper
- about 10 mini sweet bell peppers, cut into large pieces
- 1 large eggplant cut into cubes
In a blender, combine the salt, pepper, onion, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, and Italian seasoning. Blend until it forms a paste. Place the cubed chicken into one gallon sized Ziploc bag and the eggplant and peppers into a separate bag. Pour half of the marinade into each bag, seal, and massage the bags to make sure the paste covers all the meat and veggies. Place the bags in the refrigerator and let marinate for at least 30 minutes. We let ours sit for 2-3 hours.
Remove the meat from the bag and place onto skewers. Heat your grill pan or grill, and spray or coat with oil to prevent sticking. I used medium high heat. Place the skewers on the grill pan and cook until you see beautiful grill marks and your chicken is cooked on one side. After about 10 minutes, turn the chicken over and continue until cooked through.
You can skewer and cook the eggplant on the grill as well, but I did not have enough space. Instead I roasted the eggplant in our oven. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Spread the peppers and eggplant on a large greased cookie sheet. For easy cleanup, I lined my sheet with aluminum foil and then greased. Bake until the veggies are tender, about 30 minutes.
Before
After
We served the chicken and veggies with rice and salad. A healthy dinner served and lots of happy faces!
hill love 