It was a long winter in Indiana and we got our first taste of Spring with warm weather this weekend. Of course, nothing says Spring to me like grilling outdoors again and one of our favorite things to cook in the summer just happens to be grilled kabobs! Kabobs are a fantastic way to create a dish for each individual family member that incorporates each of their favorite meats and vegetables. It also happens to allow for individual personalization without the inconvenience of being a short-order chef.

Today I wanted to share three easy grilled kabob recipes that are sure to be a hit with your family and when entertaining. These recipes deserved their constant rotation in your menu planner because they are easy to prepare and the leftovers can be recreated into delicious salads and wraps. Unfortunately, no matter how much I prepare, these kabobs go unbelievably quick in our house. I hope you will have more leftovers to enjoy than we do!

Without further adieu, here are three fun recipes for grilled kabobs to try on your grill!

The rosemary and ranch add such a wonderful depth of flavor to the chicken and these come off the grill so juicy! If you actually have any meat leftover (which is debatable in our house), I love to put these on top of a salad the next day. The chicken is still surprisingly juicy even after being zapped in the microwave and it has been a wonderful way to spice up my daily salads for lunch!

Rosemary Ranch Chicken Kabobs (Courtesy of AllRecipes)

1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup ranch dressing
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon minced fresh rosemary (If you haven’t planted rosemary yet like me, 1 teaspoon of the dried stuff works great!)
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper, or to taste
1 tablespoon white sugar, or to taste (optional)
5 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – cut into 1 inch cubes

In a medium bowl, stir together the olive oil, ranch dressing, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, salt, lemon juice, white vinegar, pepper, and sugar. Let stand for 5 minutes. Place chicken in the bowl, and stir to coat with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Preheat the grill for medium-high heat. Thread chicken onto skewers and discard marinade. Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill skewers for 8 to 12 minutes, or until the chicken is no longer pink in the center, and the juices run clear.

This shrimp tastes exactly like something you would eat at a fancy restaurant and it is bursting with flavor. It is unbelievable how these simple pantry ingredients can make the shrimp taste so good, but I doubt I will ever make another shrimp recipe again! It is the perfect dish to entertain with since it can be served hot or cold. The marinade adds so much flavor that there is no need for any special sauce accompaniment. You have to love anything that only requires four or five minutes on the grill and is still wildly impressive to your dinner guests!

Marinated Grilled Shrimp (Adapted from AllRecipes)

3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4  cup olive oil
1/4 cup tomato sauce
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil (I omitted because we did not have any on hand)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 pound fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
Skewers

In a large bowl, stir together the garlic, olive oil, tomato sauce, and red wine vinegar. Season with basil, salt, and cayenne pepper. Add shrimp to the bowl, and stir until evenly coated. Cover, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours, stirring once or twice. Preheat grill for medium heat. Thread shrimp onto skewers, piercing once near the tail and once near the head. Discard marinade. Lightly oil grill grate. Cook shrimp on preheated grill for 2 to 3 minutes per side, or until opaque.

This marinade can be prepared up to a day before and makes a deliciously sweet (but not too sweet) meat. The flavors remind me a little bit of those port-a-pit chickens that are sold for fundraisers… just as messy, but not half as greasy.

Yummy Honey Chicken Kabobs (Adapted from AllRecipes)

Quick Grilling Tip:

I have become a huge fan of those disposable containers for marinating foods because they are so easy to transport out to our grill and are easy to stack, especially if you are headed out for a picnic. It may also be because I have had  a few too many leaky bags in my fridge so I find these to be a great option for me!  These freezer containers plus our handy dandy meat thermometer have made grilling out practically foolproof and have streamlined our grilling effortlessly.

I love to stick these, marinade and all, in the freezer and prep a few different marinades in one afternoon. Most marinades have similar base ingredients (dressings, olive oil, vinegars, salt, pepper, seasonings, Worcestershire sauce, etc..) and it is so much easier to do this all at once rather than getting them out each time. What a time saver!

Last week we celebrated my husband’s birthday and his birthday dinner request happened to be my Rotini With Turkey Meatballs. Since I was making meatballs already for our dinner, I decided to make a double batch and make a little California Italian Wedding Soup for our soup this week.

Each family member has their own favorite soup. My daughter loves my chicken & noodle soup and now begs for it every time she has a tiniest bit of ache or pain. She claims that this soup is the only thing that could make her feel better. My son flips for my Pesto Chicken Tortellini Soup and asks for this weekly. My Greek Lemon Chicken Soup is my new favorite thing… in fact, I can almost taste it! My husband though firmly states that this California Italian Wedding Soup is the most comforting and satisfying soup on our family’s soup agenda.  Satisfyingly hardy with meatballs blended with ground turkey & beef , but also surprisingly light with fresh basil, spinach, and hints of lemon in every bite… it truly is a delicious soup treat for the whole family.

You won’t believe how easy it is to make this soup and with a double batch of baked meatballs in the fridge, you will have a great soup to feed a small army with a minimal amount of effort!

Grab four carrots out of your crisper drawer and chop them in small even pieces for your soup. This is a great time to get rid of any carrots that have lost some of their crispness since we will be cooking them up!

In a pot of salted & boiling water, add one cup of any small pasta that might be lurking in your pantry. I love to use small shells or orzo for this dish since those are two pastas we always have on hand. Cook as directed on the package.

In another pot, add a couple of tablespoons to the bottom of the pot and then add carrots, salt, and pepper. Let them cook for five minutes. Add two cloves of minced garlic to the pot and let the garlic cook for one minute. Be careful and don’t have your heat up too high for this or the garlic will burn.

You can now add the broth to your carrots and garlic. Add two boxes (eight cups) of low-sodium chicken broth. Next, you will add your secret weapon…one can of beef broth.  This is going to add to the meaty taste of your soup since you are baking your meatballs instead of cooking them in the soup. Finally, add the zest of one lemon to the broth. Save this lemon since we will be adding the juice to the broth later!

Pull your meatballs out of your fridge and add them to your soup broth along with your drained & cooked pasta. If you don’t have any meatballs on hand, you can use our recipe below for an easy (and lower fat) way of cooking meatballs for your dishes. Now that I bake my meatballs, I will never make them any other way again! These are full of flavor with Italian breadcrumbs, cheese, and a hint of tomato. I promise, they are just as delicious as the fried versions and incredibly moist and flavorful.  Yum.

Add the final ingredients to your soup! Mix in fresh spinach, freshly chopped basil, and the juice of one lemon. Give your soup a taste and check your seasonings. Ladle into bowls and serve with a side of my Portuguese White Bread, Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins, an Artisan Loaf, or my Homemade Whole Wheat Bread to make a delicious accompaniment.

California Italian Wedding Soup

8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 can (2 cups) beef broth
1 lemon, zested (save the juice for finishing the dish)
2 tablespoons olive oil
3-4 carrots, chopped into uniform pieces
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup pasta (preferably orzo or small shells)
1 pound of prepared meatballs (see recipe below)
2 cups fresh baby spinach
2 tablespoons freshly chopped basil
Juice from one lemon
Parmesan cheese (for sprinkling on your finished bowls)

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add noodles and cook until tender. Drain, and rinse under cool running water. Meanwhile, in  a large saucepan or Dutch oven, saute the carrots in two tablespoons of olive oil for five minutes to start your soup base or you can skip this step and proceed as directed, if you desire a crunchier vegetable. Add the minced garlic and cook for one minute (being careful to not allow the garlic to burn).   Heat up the broth (chicken & beef) and add the zest of one lemon, allowing the broth to simmer.   Gently add your cooked meatballs to the pot.  Reduce heat and cook until the meatballs are heated through. Toss in a handful of fresh chopped basil, the juice of one lemon, and fresh spinach.  Ladle into bowls and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Baked Turkey Meatballs

This recipe will give you a double batch of meatballs. I recommend using the other half of this recipe for our Homemade Spaghetti & Meatballs, Rotini With Turkey Meatballs, or a fun make-your-own meatball sub night for a busy weeknight dinner!

1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 1/2 cups grated Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound Italian turkey sausages (remove the casings)
1 pound lean ground beef

In a medium bowl, stir together the bread crumbs, parsley, eggs, milk,tomato paste,Parmesan cheese, and the salt and pepper. Add the turkey & ground beef, then gently stir to combine. Make your meatballs the standard size and put them on a baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for ten to fifteen minutes. When done cooking, drop in the baked meatballs for a few minutes. This will be just as delicious with a lot less mess and fewer calories.

This concludes my soup series as we move into fun grilling ideas and dishes for Spring. I hope you have gotten a little soup inspiration here and are enjoying the picture tutorials to go along with our recipes too! I would love to hear your feedback!

This soup… oh, this soup. Words seem indescribable to explain how it tastes like love, like comfort, and like coming home. If ever there was a soup that a girl could be proud of, this is my soup. It is rich and creamy tasting, but lightened with lemon. It is, in my humble opinion, the best pot of soup I have ever made.

Let me not say that this comes without effort. The day I made this soup our kitchen was a roaring 500 degrees, I was stripped down to my workout clothes and my hair was in a frizzy singed state from leaning into an oven to flip pitas. I mistakenly had picked up cilantro to garnish my soup instead of parsley and there were bits of food all over my sad apparel. As my sweaty hand clutched my camera to take the preparation pictures,  I sadly watched my soup getting colder by the minute garnished with cilantro (my least favorite seasoning) for that perfect finish photo. At that moment,  I heard something roaring in my head….

“THIS IS NUTS.”

Then I sat down and I ate it…and every moment of crazy was worth this effort. The soup kept giving to me for an easy midweek lunch, a shared lunch with a good friend, and then the final bowl was enjoyed this weekend.

Those moments of effort seem worth the crazy sometimes. And crazy is likely what my husband thought when he saw me sweating, red-faced, in my tank top with a singed hair halo around my pink face…but he & my kids agreed it was worth mommy’s crazy for a bowl of this.

The beginning preparation will look familiar to you if you have prepared my Chicken & Noodle Soup. We are going to chop some carrots for our soup base. I like four carrots, but you can do more or less, depending on how many carrots you like in your soup.

In a large pot, drizzle a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and drop your carrots into the pot. Season these with salt and pepper. Let them cook for five minutes to get a good base to your quick soup going.

Juice a couple of lemons to add to your chicken broth. You will need 1/2 a cup of juice for this recipe. Please use real lemons, not the bottled stuff…it really is worth it!

Pour eight cups of low-sodium chicken broth into your pot that is filled with the carrots.  Add the juice of the lemons to the pot and season with another round of salt and pepper. Bring this liquid to a nice, slow simmer.

Take advantage of a sale like I did, and snag a rotisserie chicken to use for your soup. Rest your bird in the simmering liquid and let it cook for fifteen minutes, allowing the seasonings from the bird to season your broth. Oh, this is going to be so delicious!

In a separate pot, bring a pot of water to a boil. Season generously with a little salt. Add 1 cup of orzo pasta to this pot and cook as directed. Once, it is cooked, drain the pasta and set it aside for your soup.

Carefully pull your chicken out and dice the meat from the bird for your soup. Let it rest for a few minutes while you finish your soup base.

Now comes your secret ingredient to the creaminess of your soup…egg yolk. Whisk three egg yolks in a separate bowl. Now you need to temper your egg yolks (sounds fancy, but it is not),  by adding a little of the hot soup base to your eggs and then whisking the heck out of it.  By adding a little of the hot liquid to your egg yolks, you are preventing a scrambled egg mess in your soup. Once you have added some of this hot liquid to the eggs and whisked it, you can whisk the egg mixture into your whole pot of soup. Again, whisk the heck out of it. Don’t freak out- you got this!

Add back in your chicken and the orzo pasta. Stir and ladle immediately into bowls garnished with parsley and lemon slices.

You can serve your soup with store-bought pitas, or you can give my bread machine pita recipe a shot. I highly recommend at least attempting this recipe sometime, these homemade pitas are heavenly and are so yummy, hot out of the oven.  The best part, is that your bread machine can do all of the hard work for you!

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup

8 cups chicken broth

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice

4 carrots, chopped

1 cup cooked orzo pasta

Diced, cooked chicken meat (from a rotisserie chicken)

Lemon slices, fresh parsley, salt & pepper for seasoning & garnish)

3 egg yolks

Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add orzo noodles and cook until tender. Drain, and rinse under cool running water. Meanwhile, in  a large saucepan or Dutch oven, saute the carrots in two tablespoons of olive oil for five minutes to start your soup base or you can skip this step and proceed as directed, if you desire a crunchier vegetable.  Heat up broth and fresh lemon juice and bring it to a simmer. Gently add your rotisserie chicken and all of the drippings from the pan and put a lid on your pot.  Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 15 minutes.  Pull out your chicken and set aside to dice.  Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks until light in color. Gradually add some of the hot soup to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Return the egg mixture to the soup pot and heat through. Add the orzo and chicken. Ladle hot soup into bowls and garnish with lemon slices. Toss in a handful of fresh chopped parsley and ladle into bowls.

Side note: If you like a thicker soup base, you can melt two tablespoons of butter and then spoon two tablespoons of flour in the pot, after you have cooked your carrots. Add a little of your chicken broth to the flour & butter and whisk it, then whisk the rest of your soup broth and lemon juice in, to help prevent lumps. This will give you a thicker base to your soup broth.

Pita Bread (for the Bread Machine)

1 1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons yeast

Put ingredients into the bread machine in order listed. Run the dough cycle on your machine. When the bread machine beeps, pull the dough out of the bread machine and divide the dough into ten pieces. Roll each piece into a six inch circle. Place these on a baking sheet (or your pizza stones) and let them rise for twenty minutes (I can fit about four rounds per pizza stone or three pitas per baking sheet). Bake at 500 degrees for three minutes. Using a spatula, flip the pitas and cook for another three to four minutes on the flip side.

Side Note: When you pull the pitas off of your baking sheet, wrap them into a damp kitchen towel for a few minutes. This helps keep them from drying out. Once they are cool, you can store them in a food storage bag. Freeze extras for a rainy day! After the pitas have cooled, slip a piece of wax paper between them and store in a freezer bag. You can take out what you need…when you need it!

What is a dish that you are so proud of, but feels like it takes a lot of effort to make? I would love to hear your crazy kitchen confessions!

With the new year in full swing, I have been trying to make a conscious effort to get back to healthier eating.

I think our family eats relatively healthy… with the exception that we tend to be carb-loving fools and could really benefit from cutting back on the pasta and bread in our house.

I am trying to incorporate more meat-free nights, embrace those whole grains, encouraging lots of fruit and veggie eating, and adding lots more fish into our diet.

I am hoping to share a few of the ways that we are working on our healthy eating in our house as well as share the recipe success stories from our kitchen.

I love grilled fish and once a week  I have been trying  to prepare a marinade for a quick and easy weeknight dinner.

In the winter months, I rely on our little indoor grill a lot to get that delicious grilled flavor without being outside and braving the cold.

A few holidays ago, I spent my Christmas money on a Cuisinart 5-in-1 griddle at a home goods store.

It was the last one on the shelf and missing the griddle portion of it so I got it for a 75 percent discount.

I ran home with it and couldn’t wait to start making fancy panini sandwiches on it and grilling our food on it.

At the time, we had an electric stove and it was the perfect way to enjoy our grilled foods in the winter.

Now that we have a gas stove, I have longed for a grill pan to rest on top of my burners.

Of course, it isn’t anything I truly need so I continue to give our little Cuisinart a good workout in our kitchen.

It is a handy little gadget that has served us well in the winters and you can’t beat a fancy panini and soup night in these cold winter months.

My new favorite salmon recipe is this Slammin’ Salmon marinade that is perfect for quick cooking and getting dinner on the table in a hurry.

This marinade is rich and flavorful with a good balance of sweetness on the fish. I paired this with my easy microwave lemon broccoli and brown rice for a filling and satisfying dinner.  

Everyone absolutely love this marinade.

My husband & I loved it for the flavor it added to our salmon, my daughter loved it because it is pink, and my son…well, he will eat just about anything.  

This recipe is definitely a keeper for our family.

Below is our modified version of this delicious marinade!

Give it a try and see if you can’t find a new way to appreciate seafood in your house.

Slammin’ Salmon Marinade (Adapted from AllRecipes.com)

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 cup olive oil
8 (4 ounce) skinless, boneless salmon fillets

Stir balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, and soy sauce with salt, brown sugar, ground ginger, paprika, pepper, and red pepper flakes until the salt has dissolved. Stir in garlic, sesame oil, and olive oil until well combined.. Pour marinade into a resealable plastic bag or glass bowl. Add salmon to marinade and gently toss to coat. Place into refrigerator and marinate 2 to 4 hours. Prepare your grill for medium-high heat. Drain excess marinade from salmon fillets. Grill until firm and opaque, about 4 minutes per side (may need shorter cooking time depending on the thickness of your salmon fillets).

Looking for other fun ways to enjoy adding seafood into your diet? Be sure to check out our other recipes: 

Balsamic & Rosemary Salmon

Marinated Grilled Shrimp

 Herb Baked Tilapia 

What is your favorite way to incorporate fish into your family’s diet?  Feel free to share your favorite recipes and links!

There are few things that I love more than a comforting bowl of soup on a cold day, but there are few things I love to do than stand hours over the stove preparing that delicious soup. Homemade chicken noodle soup is a delicious thing, but not on a typical weeknight for me with homework and evening activities going on.

If you are looking for a soup with that tastes deliciously homemade, but can be prepared in about 30 minutes and happily feed your family for a week, then this is the soup for you. The trick with this soup is starting with a good well-seasoned base and then working from there with quicker cooking techniques and ingredients.

Of course, after I showcased the Presto Pesto Pasta Con Pollo as an easy weeknight meal that was prepared with a rotisserie chicken, I began to think about some other scenarios where that chicken would work for a busy weeknight dinner. I settled on this quick version of Chicken Noodle Soup that, dare I say it, rivals any homemade version I have tasted and could satisfy my Panera Bread soup cravings easily.

Begin by chopping your ingredients in uniform size pieces. I chopped up three carrots and two stalks of celery for this one.

In a large pot, get two tablespoons of olive oil heated up and then add your vegetables to the oil. Give them a gentle toss to get them all coated and then season with your salt and pepper. I like to get these sweating for about five minutes to get the vegetables going and start with a good base flavor. If you like a crunchier texture in your soup, you can skip this step.

Once they are good and sweating, add three boxes (or approximately 12 cups) of of low-sodium chicken broth to the pot and  get this liquid simmering. From here on out, you need to go very easy with the salt because the final stage, we are adding cornstarch to thicken it and we don’t want it to be too salty.

Now it is time to add your secret weapon to your soup.  I found this rotisserie chicken at our local Walmart for $4.98, or approximately the same cost as the whole fryer chickens that I would have to prepare myself.  They offered a few different varieties, but I thought this Lemon Pepper one would offer an interesting flavor to the soup. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little bit, or just go with the traditional variety, if that is all you can find.

Very carefully slide your rotisserie chicken into the simmering broth and put a lid on  your pot. Let this simmer for about fifteen minutes.  Then very carefully pull the chicken out and dice for your soup. Mix together a bit of cornstarch and water to make a thickener, if you like a thick broth and add it gently while whisking frantically into your broth.

Once that is done, you can add in two to three cups of noodles. You can have these cooking in a separate pot and then add them in, so they don’t absorb all of the soup liquid, or you can add them right into your bubbling broth and make it a thicker soup.   To  add to the homemade taste, I used the bagged egg noodles in the frozen section of the store, but you can use any variety that you like.

After the noodles have cooked, add your chicken back in and a handful of fresh parsley. Give it a stir and ladle into your bowls for a quick weeknight dinner. A side of my Portuguese White Bread, Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins, an Artisan Loaf, or my Homemade Whole Wheat Bread all would make a delicious accompaniment.

What does the soup taste like? Soulful, satisfying, rich, delicious, comforting, and restaurant-worthy! This is definitely a lot cheaper than going out for soup and you can enjoy these leftovers all week long! Loved by all in our family, it is a recipe that I will be repeating again and again!

With the Thanksgiving holiday quickly approaching, remember that this soup can easily be adapted with your yummy leftover turkey for another great way to use up those leftovers!

Quick Weeknight Chicken Noodle Soup