Bacon Wrapped Chicken Shish Kabob

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EASY RECIPE

This week’s easy meal idea, Bacon Wrapped Chicken Shish Kabob, is a great low cost easy meal that will result in ovations from your family or guests!

Recipe for 4 servings.

Ingredients:

Soak wood shish kabob sticks in water while preparing the following.

1 Skinless Chicken Breast Fillet (about 1 1/4 lb.) cut into 2 inch squarish pieces

8 Bacon slices (get from Butcher not packaged) – trim some fat from ends as necessary

1/2 Green Bell Pepper cut into squarish pieces

1/2 Red Onion cut in wedges

6 Mushrooms (more if you like)

Your choice of BBQ sauce (we used A-1 Steak Sauce on some and Teriyaki Sauce on others)

1 head of brocoli or other vegetable for side

Wrap 1 slice of bacon around each chicken square

Insert the sharp end of the shish kabob stick into the bacon wrapped chicken right at the point of bacon overlap so as to keep bacon firmly attached. Push stick through the piece of chicken and then insert point into the mushroom, onion, green pepper, and then repeat with second piece of chicken, followed by vegetables.

Dribble a little olive oil over the kibobs and place oil side down on BBQ preheated to medium high. Blow out any initial flare up from the oil. BBQ for 15 to 20 minutes until chicken juices run clear and bacon is crispy. During the last 5 minutes of cooking begin brushing sauce on the chicken as turned.

While chicken is on the BBQ steam brocoli on oven for about 6 minutes.

AND STUFF

A few “And Stuff” table conversation stories back I wrote about how our youngest son was tired of flag football, and wanted to hit people with a stick. If you did not read the story, fear not, hitting people with a stick is not code for a violent flash mob event. Rather, it is an integral part of the age old sport of Lacrosse.

It is possible Lacrosse was being played in the Great Plains when I was a boy, but I doubt it. As I recall, the only sport we had in my youth that used a small square net involved razor sharp blades and ice. Although I do recall girls (or maybe Scottish guys) in kilts running around on the football field with sticks, but I think that was field hockey.

Upshot is, the game of Lacrosse, and its rules were new to me. We have now gone through the spring and summer seasons, and I can report that Lacrosse is a great, fast, and exciting game. And, in fact you can hit people with a stick! Although, as a hat tip to civility a player can be penalized with 40 seconds or more in the penalty box if he hits another player on the head. The sport has elements of hockey, soccer, and football (American). But, unlike football, unless there is an injury, penalty, or timeout the action is nonstop until the clock has run for the quarter.

My son enjoyed the game, and learned to give and take pretty good hits in the process. But, the season is over, and it’s time for Pop Warner tackle football!

My brother-in-law Tom describes football as the one sport that mirrors American society; as it consists of a committee meeting followed by a short burst of violent action followed by another committee meeting, and further violent action.

In any event, Sue and I were very happy our son had played Lacrosse this summer, because the tackle football season started with 2 hour practices Monday through Friday for the entire month of August. The first week was limited to conditioning every day, so that the players would get 10 hours of conditioning completed before putting the pads on and practicing real football.

And here we are in week two, the pads are on and so is the game. As I said, our son started in flag, which includes blocking, and then he evolved to Lacrosse which includes hitting with a stick, and very hard blocking. But now, our son has to learn to tackle. Last night while watching practice I saw good blocking being executed but no tackling. But, then towards the end of practice, while one of the coaches was talking and gesturing to our son, the play started, he immediately took off and exploded into the offensive player and executed a very nice tackle. Not one, nor two, but three coaches ran over patted him on the shoulder, helmet, with high fives all around. Seems the boy had executed his first full tackle and it was only the second day with pads on.

Here we go again, a new sport, a new season, and it looks like it’s going to be exciting. Every game will be played on a great high school field with stadium seating.

I bet like us, many of you are looking forward to your son’s first game of the season. I will let you know how the season progresses.

Good Eating and Table Talk,

Roger