I’m not a great cook, but in order to help out my wife I’ve been cooking at least 2 days a week for the last year or so. I’ve found a few recipes that work and pretty much stick to them. Yes, this is quite boring but it works for us. However, when I ask my wife if she likes it, she says she likes not cooking those nights which isn’t a big encouragement! Last week I got the idea that I was going to make kebabs and when I went to the store to get ingredients, a bottle of brown mustard called my name.
I went searching for a recipe that had brown mustard in it that met my dietary needs and didn’t require me to go back to the store. Unfortunately there wasn’t an easy way to take an inventory of what we had and get a recipe, so my searching came up with a recipe that was kind of in the ballpark of what I wanted. I don’t experiment in the kitchen and tend to follow recipes, but I decided to go out on a limb and make some modifications. When I cooked the chicken the following night, my wife said it was excellent which was a huge relief to me! I guess I’m starting to understand what ingredients make what flavors and what we like. Who knows, I might take a cooking class one day!
In any case, for my own records here is the recipe I ended up using:
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup honey
- 4 tablespoons sweet brown mustard (no added sugar)
- 1 tablespoon coconut aminos
- 1 tablespoon coconut sugar
- 1 tsp parsley flakes
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp minced garlic (we have a big container from Costco)
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 green bell pepper
- 1/2 red bell pepper
- Other vegetables to grill
- 1 to 1.5 lbs chicken
Directions
- Combine all ingredients (except for the vegetables and chicken) in a small metal bowl.
- Whisk ingredients.
- Cut chicken into chunks.
- Cut peppers and other vegetables into chunks
- Put chicken and peppers in quick marinator (not sure this really does anything, but I did it anyway).
- Pour marinade over chicken and peppers.
- Completely cover everything with marinade.
- Refrigerate for 24 hours.
- Place chunks on metal skewers.
- Grill to perfection!
Enjoy!
Hi Scott,
I do about half the meals here. One my Favs is simply BBQ chicken…
Simply, Buy a package of boneless, skinless chicken. At my local Walmart or Aldi it is less than $2 lbs. Normally you get a package about 4-5 lbs. Take the 6-8 pieces and marinate all in Walmart “Italian Dressing and Marinade” for a an hour or more. Then add salt and pepper and a sprinkling of Old Bay. Grill over charcoal fire for ~10 mins a side, adding the leftover marinade to the chicken breasts as you cook. Some cooks are perpetual flippers and that is OK too. This provides several days of main course, sandwiches etc for minimal effort. My best friend Todd (perpetual flipper) was the creator, I can’t take credit for the recipe.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for the tip! Most of the off the shelf marinades I found had sugar, corn syrup, molasses, or something else in them. I try to avoid consuming complex sugars which, unfortunately, makes it hard to find something. I do realize that I have no control over what stuff is cooked in when I go out, so I do must best to control what I eat when I’m at home. Maybe I can find a marinade next time at the store that meets my strict dietary guidelines!
If you want to avoid complex sugars you will need to make your own marinade. Not hard, my recipe is ultimate simplicity. Add 30 minutes to make enough marinade for several batches. Bring any meat to room temperature before cooking for better results. We like steamed fresh vegetables as sides with the chicken and try to avoid starches.
Thanks, Bill! I may have to try making some other marinades to keep things interesting.