Three Cooks One Kitchen: Backyard Grilling

It’s time for another installment of Three Cooks One Kitchen!

Joanna, Hannah, and I had so much fun last month getting together and making Cinco de Mayo foods. We couldn’t wait to do it all over again. This month we decided to focus on summertime staples. We wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather and grill up some backyard favorites. It was a great time.

Joanna hosted this month’s get-together at her house. I’m in love with her backyard swing. I could totally see myself sitting out there and reading for hours. I wonder how hard it would be to convince my apartment to install one on our roof?

Joanna is so prepared. When I hosted last month, I was running around vacuuming while they arrived. In contrast, she had everything laid out and even had food and drinks set out for us to munch on while we worked. I went to town on this guacamole.

Backyard grilling menu

• Veggie kabobs
• Chicken kabobs
• Veggie sausage kabobs
• Grilled corn
• Watermelon

Joanna and Hannah got down to business  mixing and measuring for the marinades.

While I started cutting up the veggies.

Check out my veggie stacks. 😀 I was having fun.

We used two different marinade recipes we found online. As excited as we were to cook, we were more excited to get to hang out and eat. 😀

• Grilled chicken fajita kabobs (This one was too spicy for me, but everyone else raved about it.)
• Hawaiian teriyaki shish kabobs (I really liked this one. Teriyaki is one of my favorite flavorings.)

In my opinion, kabobs are one of the quintessential summer foods. While I’ve enjoyed my fair share, I’ve never made them before. I learned an important lesson that you have to soak the skewers in water before placing them on the grill so they don’t catch on fire. I’m so glad Joanna and Hannah know these things. I thought I’d pass along that tip in case any of you are clueless grillers like me. They really weren’t hard to make though, and they only took about ten minutes to grill.

Josh and Jeff took care of most of the grilling duties. This included preparing and then grilling the corn. Oh man this corn was fabulous. They grilled it in the husk (after removing the silk) for about 20 minutes.

We didn’t really plan out when we were going to cook each thing, but in the end it all worked out great. We were preparing the veggies for grilling when we realized we forgot to cut up the onions. And then when the veggies were grilling we realized we forgot we had corn to still grill. Summer is all about going with the flow, right? 😀

Yummy kabobs to fit every diet. The mushrooms are not pictured here, but they were easily my favorite thing. I would make kabobs entirely out of the teriyaki marinated mushrooms.

We finished up with watermelon pieces on the patio for dessert. I can’t believe I used to dislike watermelon as a kid! I love it now.

Even our littlest cook was a fan. 😀 I love getting to hang out with Eleanor and can’t wait to celebrate her first birthday soon!

It was another great day with some of my favorite girls. I hope you enjoyed our latest edition of Three Cooks One Kitchen!

To read Joanna and Hannah’s perspective on our cooking extravaganza check out their blog posts!

• Clean Eating Veggie Girl’s recap (All photo credit goes to this girl.)
• Makingmine’s recap (Major thanks to her for hosting and picking up all the food!)

Questions of the Day: Do you like to grill in the summertime? What are some of your favorite summer foods?