Whip It Up! Week 1

For this week's challenge, I decided not only to conquer not only a new recipe but a new cooking style! One that's mostly for the boys...grilling.

Yesterday I threw a little BBQ out by my pool. I decided to add a little something to our usual bratwurst & hot dogs menu. Kebabs. On a grill. Yeah.

I used this recipe however, instead of using toothpicks, I used skewers:

1 lb. bacon, each slice cut in half
1 lb. shrimp, peeled & deveined
3 jalapeno peppers, cut into strips
1/2 cup italian dressing
1/4 cup butter, melted

Directions: Make sure you have 1 piece of halved bacon for each shrimp and cut an equal amount of jalapeno slices. In a bowl, combine butter and dressing. Soak shrimp in the mixture. Place 1 shrimp and 1 jalapeno slice on the bacon, wrap, and secure with a toothpick. Place on grill over medium heat until bacon and shrimp are cooked.

My cooking pictures are below! I didn't do so well with the photos this time. Hopefully I'll do better next time! (Please don't mind the wine bottles...I like wine...). I also made chicken kebabs, but it wasn't any sort of recipe, just chicken chunks, green bell peppers, onion and zuchinni. I marinated the chicken in Lowry's Lemon Pepper 30 minute marinade. Easy peasy.

Soaking the skewers:

My shrimp. I wasn't paying attention when I bought them. Realized when I got home they weren't peeled and deveined so I had to do it myself. There may have been 4 letter words involved in that discovery. I can't confirm that though. Note to self: Pay attention to what you're buying!

My finally peeled & deveined shrimp! I figured out why my back always hurts. My counters are made for short people. FAIL!

My marinade. Yum-o!

Marinating shrimp:
There are no photos of me actually skewering the shrimp as I was elbow deep in marinade. But here they are all skewered. I should have put the shrimp in the front, but as I mentioned earlier, I did not do so well with the pictures this time!
On the grill:
All finished! Again, not a great photo. I think this is the first round of kebabs to come off the grill. They ended up a little burned (but still delicious!). The second and third rounds turned out much better, but clearly I was not into taking pictures. Instead I was into shoving those things in my mouth as fast as possible!
All in all, the recipe was pretty easy! It's difficult to get the skewer through the bacon, shrimp AND jalapeno, but after doing a few, I got the hang of it. Using the grill is not so easy! I think I'll leave that to the men in my life. I am now the proud owner of my very own grill though so, I'll have to get some use out of it!

To wrap up, was this recipe easy to follow? Yes! Was it good? Yes! (My friends and I all gave it rave reviews) Will I make it again? Yes! Hopefully before summer's over. It was the perfect outdoor summer dish.

Next week I'm headed back to my conventional oven. Perhaps I do belong in the kitchen!