MEDITERRANEAN VEGGIE KEBABS

Mediterranean Veggie Kebabs image

This one regularly impresses guests and family alike. A great flavor and a few secrets to grilling veggies revealed. This recipe works great as a side dish served hot or served cold after the fact as a grilled veggie salad, tasty addition to a wrap or sandwich, or even chopped and added to an omelette! Feel comfortable varying the amount of veggies in the recipe as you see fit - the cooking times and the marinade remain consistent. The marinade itself will also double as a very good balsamic vinegrette. What versatility! Enjoy it!

Provided by Brad Nichols @bmnich

Number Of Ingredients 16

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Ingredients

2 - red onions , quartered into wdeges
4 - young zucchini - cut into 1.5 inch cylinders
2 - green peppers, seeded and cut into 1.5 inch squares
2 - red peppers, seeded and cut into 1.5 inch squares
10-12 - cherry tomatoes
3/4 cup(s) olive oil
1/4 cup(s) balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup(s) red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon(s) chopped fresh italian parsley
3/4 teaspoon(s) salt
1/2 teaspoon(s) dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon(s) sugar
1/4 teaspoon(s) tarragon
1/4 teaspoon(s) thyme
1/4 teaspoon(s) ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon(s) dried chives

Steps:

Before threading your veggies onto the skewers. A couple secrets to great Veggie Kebabs you need to know.. 1) Put all the same vegetable on a skewer instead of creating the pretty rainbow of ingredients. It will make cooking times consistent.
2) HOW you skewer the veggies to avoid having them fall off during cooking. Here are my best practices: For tomatoes, skewer down through the brown dimple where the tomato joins the vine. For Zucchini, skewer cross-wise rather than lengthwise. This way you have the skin to help hold the cylinders on the skewer, plus you can get great grill marks on the white interiors. For the onion wedges, go from the center of the wide side of the wedge to the narrow (so outside to inside) and keep them all in the same direction. For Peppers, keep the natural curves of your cut squares roughly facing the same direction on the skewer to make the best use of skewer space. Check out the picture - this time notice how the veggies are oriented on the skewers
OK - Thread the skewers, and lay them in a shallow pan or foil tray
Combine Oil, vinegars, and spices and whisk together.
Evenly drizzle the marinade over the skewered veggies and let stand at least 30 mins.
Fire up the BBQ to high and pre-heat. If you have temp control around 400-450 is where you want to cook these. If not...go with 'High'!
Add skewers to grill, retain marinade drippings for later use. Here's where that first secret above comes back into play...Add your skewers to the grill according to the amount of time each veggie needs so they all finish more or less together. The specific amount of time may vary according to how hot your grill is, but the proportionality should be roughly the same: Onions - 12-14 mins Peppers - 8-10 mins Zucchini - 6-8 mins Tomatoes - 4-6 mins
Turn skewers as required and remove from grill when cooked to taste.
Slide veggies off skewers into an appropriately sized serving dish, spoon some retained marinade over the veggies as a bit of 'dressing' and serve!