Just received the latest issue of La Cucina Italiana.  I really like the magazine.  I rarely follow their recipes verbatim, but it really does inspire me to have some fun.

Tonight’s dinner is a perfect example…

This month, the cover recipe – and several recipes inside – are about skewers of some sort.  Chicken  skewers, shrimp skewers, sardine skewers, tuna skewers, lamb skewers…

I haven’t made kabobs/skewers/brochettes in a while and the magazine got me going.  There was one recipe that sounded especially intriguing…  It was a chicken skewer that was topped with chopped arugula, olives, cucumber, thyme, and crushed red peppers.  The concept was sound.  I top things with homemade salsas all the time.  This was like a dry salsa.  Sorta.

First thing I did was switch the meat from chicken to a cubed tri-tip.  I marinaded it in Moore’s Marinade, garlic, and a bit of sherry.  Onto skewers with quartered onion, zucchini, and red bell pepper.

For the topping, I chopped a mango, radicchio, broccoli rabe, and fresh basil, parsley, thyme, and oregano.

Served over white rice.

That little bit of chopped stuff on top really took the plate from ordinary to extraordinary!  The fresh herbs, fruit, and veggies really livened up the dish.  Every bite exploded in freshness!  And unlike the salsas I usually make, there was no underlying sweet/hot flavor.  This was pure fresh.

I can see variations on a theme happening all summer.