Grilled Pineapple Shrimp Kabobs

It's only been 2 weeks and I'm already falling behind on my food blogs. I have two recipes that I made last week that I will be posting. The first is a grilled shrimp kabob marinated in a terriyaki sauce. It was really, really good. If you don't care for shrimp, I'm sure you can substitute chicken. The key to making this dish taste good is to sear it at a high temperature using either a grill, grill pan, or broiler. I found the base for the recipe on The Pioneer Woman Cooks food blog. She didn't really provide measurements, so I improvised and am putting the approximate amounts that I used here. The original blogger also served the kabobs plain, but I thought it could use some color so I added some red and green veggies, and served it on rice to make it into a more substantial meal.

Grilled Pineapple Shrimp Kabobs

1 cup terriyaki sauce
1/4 cup sugar

1 bunch scallions with white tips diced

2-3 cloves garlic crushed or diced.
1 small can of pineapple chunks.
1 lb raw shrimp
1 red bell pepper
1 zucchini
Pepper to taste

In a bowl mix terriyaki sauce, sugar, scallions, garlic, and about 1/4 cup of pineapple juice from the can. Add a little pepper to taste. Remove shells and veins from raw shrimp. I buy raw shrimp that has already been cut and deveined to make things easier. Add the shrimp to the marinade and set aside. The original recipe said to marinade for 2 hours or overnight in the fridge. I only marinated it for 30 minutes in the fridge and it was fine. You can use frozen shrimp if you'd like, but make sure you soak the frozen shrimp in water until thawed before placing into the marinade.

While the shrimp is marinating, prep your veggies. I cut the red bell pepper into 1" squares and sliced the zucchini to create 1/4" thick discs.

Assembly time. I started by putting one red pepper square on the skewer and then threading the skewer through the head of the shrimp. Before skewering the tail, grab one of your pineapple chunks and add it on. Then skewer the tail of the shrimp on the other side of the pineapple chunk. This puts the pineapple (and it's juices) snugly underneath the curved portion of the shrimp (see pic). Add another red pepper square to the end and repeat for the next skewer. Because zucchini cooks a lot faster than red peppers, (and they are a perfect canvas for grill marks), I decided to cook them separately and assemble them to the kabobs later.

Cook at high heat until cooked on one side, flip and cook the other side. Using a grill will provide you with the best results, but because I live in an apartment I don't have access to a grill. This really hampers my ability to create perfect little grill marks in my food. I don't know why grill marks make dishes look ultra-tasty, but they do. A grill pan is a great solution to this problem. I recently purchased a cast iron grill pan and love to break it out every chance I get. It was an impulse purchase at Kohl's. I couldn't resist the orange 60-70% off tag. (Does anyone actually ever pay full price at Kohl's?) .

Attach the grilled zucchini (or just serve alongside) and serve immediately over a bed of rice. Delicious!

One word of caution, the juices on the grill pan caused A LOT of smoke in my apartment and my stove fan doesn't work so well. I opened all the windows, turned on some fans, and crossed my fingers that my neighbors wouldn't come knocking at my door.

Retrospective: The only thing that I would do different is reduce the marinade in a sauce pan and drizzle over the rice before serving. Other than that, it was perfect.

Coming next.... Ricotta stuffed chicken and twice-baked potatoes.