Eat It Now Shish Kabob from Diana Abu-Jabar

First of all, thank you to Fuat Gencal for becoming a follower of my blog!




Many moons ago, back in January 2009, I stumbled upon the Cook the Books website and was immediately struck that this was a brilliant creation, an outstanding website. Of course I say that because I love to read, love to cook, love to eat and love to write. If you have the same interests, please check out the website HERE

Nice of me to offer the invitation when I am not an administrator of the site nor have I fully participated more than….once. That’s correct. Why am I passionate about something I’ve done once? Let me go back to the phrase “fully participated” and explain. I have quietly been following that foodie-book blog and I have read almost ALL of the assigned books since I dipped my proverbial toe into The Language of Baklava by Diana Abu-Jaber




I just fail to cook the ear-marked recipe that fits the book theme until the deadline has passed. Oh, I still create the meal, just don’t blog about it after the fact.

So there you have it, I do the work but don’t “take the test.” I confess to half participating. My usual modus operandi is to plan great things. Plan many things………..realizing too late that I planned 20 hours of cooking/blogging/crocheting/walking/writing/cleaning and I have more like….15 hours. Sometimes it’s only 10 hours. You get the idea. I suck at math and analogies…so……on with the recipe……..



From The Language of Baklava I have prepared several recipes and they were quite good. I loved the Distract Your Neighbors Chicken even though the grill looked like an inferno as the honey dripped onto the hot coals, sending flames licking up the sides of the Weber and all around the sticky chicken.

That post is HERE


One of the recipes I had copied and planned to make, several times, was Eat it Now Shish Kabob. The sizzling meat, burning fingers as it was gingerly and hurriedly pulled from the hot skewer sounded mouth watering. A few times we’ve bought the lamb and last minute made something else.

As a matter of fact, this was the meal I wanted for my birthday...but the weather did not cooperate and it spitefully rained. Hard. Well .....not tonight. I’m having those kabobs tonight. Recipe follows. I'll plant the photos in after the fact but yes....we'll be having sizzling lamb kabobs!



Eat it Now Shish Kabob

Ingredients needed........

4 TB Olive Oil
2 TB red wine vinegar
½ cup red wine
4 cloves garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons oregano
2 teaspoons rosemary
Salt and pepper
2 lbs. boneless lamb, cut in small cubes
1 large onion, cut into chunks
1 large tomato, cut into chunks


Whisk together the oil, wine, vinegar, garlic and spices in a large bowl.
Add meat and stir to coat.

Cover and refrigerate overnight, turn occasionally.

Thread cubes of lamb on skewers, occasionally adding a piece of onion or tomato. Look at the kabobs...all ready for the charcoal grill.



Grill over hot coals, turning once. Cook to medium rare and eat while sizzling.



Grill for roughly 8 minutes for medium rare........



Pair with a Shiraz...because Shiraz just goes sooo well with lamb. Pita bread and hummus. Salad......



Eating well, having fun, enjoying good company and a bottle of wine is as pleasurable an evening as you can hope for.

Please do check out the Cook the Books blog. Read and cook if it suits you or be a silent lurker like me :-) And definitely try this lamb. Mmmmmm

Bon Appetit!