Grilled lamb kebabs; pilaf; chard – 12 May 2012

I wanted to grill some red peppers for use this week, and wondered what I could grill for dinner along with them, to combine cooking and save gas. It being a Saturday, I decided on lamb kebabs.

I had packets of 6 lamb chunks in the freezer from Costco, and defrosted two of them, one for each of us. They were labeled “4 oz.”

I squeezed a Meyer lemon, gift from my departmental assistant J, and used a tsp or two of the juice, and perhaps twice as much olive oil, in a marinade. I cut several few-inch sprigs of thyme and added those leaves, and some pepper, and tossed the defrosted (barely) lamb chunks in that, stirring a couple of additional times before cooking. The lamb probably marinated between 30 and 60 minutes.

I set up the two large red peppers to grill for future use, and then started a pilaf: melted about 3 Tbsp butter in a frying pan, sauteed 1 1/2 cups basmati rice in the butter till well coated, added 2 1/2 cups water that I had preheated in the microwave 5 minutes, and two chicken boullion cubes (from Costco, sometime in the Paleolithic), which I crushed as soon as they got saturated with water.

I cut three bolted stalks of chard from the garden and brought them in (returning two extremely teeny and apparently frightened orange things to the outside). I washed the leaves, stemmed them as needed, cut into maybe 1 1/2″ pieces and spun them to dry, and then left them on a towel. I rewashed the stems and cut them into 1 1/2″ pieces or so, and cooked them a few minutes in olive oil before adding the leaves. I cooked the leaves till well coated in oil and seriously wilted, then splashed in some water and covered to cook on low till done – several minutes.

D chose a CalStar Pinot Noir, and declared this a Christmas dinner for my wine-of-the-month club. I think this is “Christmas in April” as the dates around the 25th of April are not conducive to having “Christmases.”

{Written the 12th, pictures added and posted the 19th}

~ by berkeleybarb on 2012/05/12.