A Little About Deb, and How We Do Shishkabob

Hello again, and welcome back to Ridin’ Out The Recession, in Miz judi’s Kitchen. I guess I should welcome you guys this way every morning, but dern if that ain’t a mouthful! So 99% of the time it’s just hello!

Anyway, we hope everyone is fine and dandy today, and all your family as well.

Well, Deb didn’t get her first chemo treatment Wed. as planned. She will go next Thursday. She told me that mentally she was a little uneasy with starting it Wed., so I told her do what her heart says to do, and I’m sure that’s what she’s done.

Looking at her, she looks better than she has in years, and I mean that as a compliment, she does. It’s not just me though, it’s everyone that knows her. She still tells me that besides the diagnosis, and the lump, she’d never know anything was wrong.

She assures me she feels no different at all, isn’t any more tired than she normally is, and I’m here to tell you she goes at a trot all day long. She wears my rear end out.

I tell her though, that with the amount and different varieties of juice and vegetables we’re juicing now, along with the walks on top of her normal routine, she has to be doing good things in regards to her body. I’m sure these things have to help her, and our biggest goal of this, is building up her immune system as much as we possibly can.

Anyway, if she felt uneasy about this first time, I say, so be it. It’s her decision and I feel comfortable with her doing whatever she feels best with. She’ll be there next week, and we’ll go from there.

I’ve learned since we found out about her problem, to be less vocal in my own opinion, and listen much more than I normally do. It’s her body and I trust her doing the very best possible in regards to her judgment.

She’s a trooper, and once more her positivity is unquestioned.

We made shishkabob a couple or three nights ago, and I have to tell you, ahhh…it was sooo good! Not just the shishkabob, but what “my woman,” had with it! This meal was good enough that I took a few pictures to share with you guys today.

First off, Deb loves it. So we cooked considerably more than we need for the two of us. The reasoning was two-fold. First, we both like it, so we fixed enough that we could food saver a few bags, We’ll just let these thaw, warm them up, and there’s a good meal.

Secondly, with Deb fixing to start chemo, I figured this may be something hopefully, she’ll eat if her appetite goes back some. Again she really likes it, and it’d be convenient for me to fix quickly for her.

Cream corn is another food she really likes, so we’ve done some this way for her as well. She may not want either, but we’ve put some up just in case. Who knows, we may be glad we have done so.

Back to the shishkabob,I know you guys probably know how to do this, but Deb says I need to tell you how we do it. So, that’s what I’m fixing to do. I do know that done this way, it turns out really flavorful, very tender, and awfully moist.

  • 1 London Broil
  • 1 medium pork roast
  • 1 bag of boneless chicken breasts (about 6)
  • 2 lbs. large link pork sausage
  • 4 vidalia onions
  • 3 bell peppers
  • 4 good size tomatoes
  • Salt and black pepper (heavy on the pepper)
  • 2 large bottles of Italian dressing
  • meat tenderizer

Cut up your meat into small pieces, and put into a large plastic container with a bottle of the dressing. Shake on the pepper, salt, and some meat tenderizer. Mix really well by hand.

Cut up your onions, tomatoes, and bell peppers, put them into the container over the meat. Pour in your other bottle of dressing. Shake on more salt, and pepper, then mix all ingredients again by hand. Really mix it all up good. Now refrigerate and let marinate at least 12 hours, and 24 is even better.

The next day, when we’re getting ready to cook, I light the grill, then we skewer all the meat and vegetables. As an example we used 23 skewers the other day. We don’t have 23 skewers, plus our grill wouldn’t hold that many, so we do it in two cooks. No sweat in doing this. By the time we get the first skewers finished, the grill is getting close to being ready for the skewers.

Now, I cook the shishkabob on the grill for 15 minutes or so. Once I see the meat and vegetables trying to just barely blacken in some spots (from the dressing over the coals), I snatch up that batch, take them in, and take them off the skewers, and put this in a large throw away baking pan (one like you’d use for a turkey). As soon as I get them off the skewers, I take a little of the leftover dressing and lightly pour over this, then I cover the pan good with aluminum foil to hold as much heat as I can, plus this creates moisture.

We immediately skewer the remaining meat and vegetables, and head to the grill once more. Use the same process. Once to your liking, we un-skewer these and add to the pan. Lightly pour over a little more dressing…just lightly though.

We seal the pan back up good with the foil, then put in the oven and bake on 350 for 45 minutes to an hour. We then take out and serve. The vegetables and meat have laid all mixed up together and finished cooking, and man, this is so good.

The oven has insured all being done, but they’re not overcooked in the least. The foil has kept in the moisture and I’m telling you guys, everything is really, really moist! My Mom and Dad, shoot everyone that’s had this fixed in this way, literally rave over the flavor and moisture. It’s the ONLY way we’d do this anymore.

Remember, we keep these on the grill until again, we see a blackening trying to start, then take them off the grill. This amount of time is plenty adequate to insure your grilled or smoky taste that you want out of this dish. Just try it one time. We really think you’ll see a distinct difference in the taste and the finished product.

Plus the variety of the different meats is a really nice way to go as well. You have the beef, pork and chicken flavor, and the link sausage really supplies another good taste, and goes well with the vegetables we use too.

This sausage is A-1, and we get it from Waycross, Ga. We have a friend in Alma, Ga., who grew up with my brother, and he goes to the ranch from time to time. When he does, he drops Deb and I off 100 pounds of it or more.

We use a lot ourselves, but all our neighbors love it too. So once they hear we just had a load dropped off, here they come, checkbooks and coolers in hand! Honestly, this may just be the best sausage we’ve ever put in our mouths!

Actually, I do my barbequed chicken and ribs, this way too. The oven and the foil, really make a big difference of your moisture content in your finished product!

Once I got the shishkabob ready, Deb was through on her end as well. My oh my, what a meal we sat down to. We had shishkabob, fresh out of the garden tomatoes, peas from last fall’s garden, and creamed corn we’d creamed in the last week or so…out of the garden too.

She “iced the cake” in regards to this, with a hot pan of skillet cornbread, and iced tea!

Did you say dessert?

That was covered also. She had a jar of pound cake cooked with fresh blackberries, blueberries, and strawberries we added to the mix before baking. I had a jar of banana nut bread and blueberry muffin mix combined together with fresh fruit baked into mine as well. These we’d canned 3-4 weeks back, and just as fresh and moist as if we’d just made them! Good stuff!

Well, I hope I’ve made you guy’s mouths water, as this was my true intention!

Seriously though, you ought to try your next shishkabob this way. AND you might want to can you up a few cakes or sweetbreads too. These little fellers sure hit the spot from time to time!

May God Bless you and yours, and as Deb likes to say, “Keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!”

Dub and Deb

Ready for Skewering

First Cooking on the Grill

Second, and Last Cooking on the Grill

Ready for the Oven (be sure to cover)

Finished Product

The End Result…and it sure was good! “It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.” Lewis Grizzard

Dessert…Canned Cakes…Banana Nut Bread Blueberry Muffin on the left…Pound Cake on the right, both with fresh fruit

Always remember…two can live as cheap as one, if one don’t eat!

Also…We’ve had sushi down here in the South forever…we just always called it bait.

This entry was posted in Covering the Bases. Bookmark the permalink.

2 Responses to A Little About Deb, and How We Do Shishkabob

  1. Sandra says:

    Wonderful spread, D&D, looks good to me. You should have hauled all that South and pitched it in for our Memorial day. You would have fit right in. Food, food, and more food. No corn bread, we have garlic bread, heavy on the garlic. Finished off with Butter Pecan cake with Parline topping, cold water melon and cantaloupe.
    We never get to squirrel away leftovers. Guest and family jump on to the go bags and
    when it is over we might have some crumbs left. Good 1970′s music on the sound machine. Found Lee Greenwood’s USA.
    If you have times you want to enjoy Deb, postpone that treatment for a little while.
    Building memories is a good thing. Holding your hand, cooking and wandering through the garden with you. And don’t forget I am smiling at you granddaughter.
    My girls are really growing up and really don’t appreciate those smiles as much as they did when they were small. Grandson got really into Sushi at college, he learned from his dad that the expensive fish he was eating was called bait at home. Lovin it
    watching my family is like watching a great movie!!

  2. Jack says:

    First of my thoughts and prayers go out to Deb, cancer is a terrible disease. I was born (pre I-4) and raised in Orlando retired from the Navy in Jacksonville. Any chance of getting name of the market in Waycross you get the sausage. My Dad had a place in Georgia he bought sausage when he visited my sister in that area but I never got the name before he passed. We will doing the shishkabob this weekend for Fathers Day and happy Fathers Day to Dub.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>