I got home late tonight (full disclosure: not because I worked late, but because I went shoe shopping), so I needed something fast to make for dinner. I have a bunch of quick, go-to recipes, but I wanted something different - and I wasn't feeling inspired.
On days like these I go treasure hunting - today I discovered some kebab meat in the freezer. The fridge turned up cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, eggplant and red pepper. So I made a quick marinade with my mortar and pestle (a much-used birthday gift from Josh) - fresh ginger and fresh garlic pounded into a paste, with some soy sauce for depth of flavor and a lot of fresh lime juice to tenderize what can often be a tough cut of meat. I let the meat marinate while the rice was cooking and I chopped up some tomato, cucumber and onion for an easy, Israeli-style salad (with olive oil and lime juice as the makeshift vinaigrette).
The meat and vegetable kebabs cooked under the broiler for about 5 minutes per side. Since I had leftovers, I "grilled" some onions and eggplant with the kebabs to use as a topping for the rice. (Because we were hungry, this picture was taken before the rice was topped - hence the big white blob in the corner of the plate.) Josh declared it a make-again, which makes it a winner in my book.
Since it was a gorgeous night, we walked to Ben & Jerry's to use a 2-for-1 coupon. There we ran into Carl Levin, who was eating a blackberry sorbet on the B&J patio with his wife. Josh wanted to overly-enthusiastically thank him for his contribution to the party, while I wanted to pretend to mistake him for Senator McCain and tell him I was voting for him in November. We ended up walking away and doing nothing.