Easy Breezy Turkey Kebabs and Bell Pepper Salad

Turkey breast, the quintessential meat of choice when one is on a diet.  It just screams healthy.  Unfortunately, it’s not the tastiest meat.  So when I started my diet a few weeks ago, I needed a low fat, low carb, tasty but simple recipe that I could do with turkey breast (I bought 1.1 kg and I was already sick of turkey steaks).

Since I had turkey and I had a new package of bell peppers, here’s what I came up with.

MATERIALS and METHODS
Turkey Kebabs

• 140 g turkey breast cut into 1″ cubes
• 1/3 green bell pepper, cut into 1″ squares
• 1/3 red bell pepper, cut into 1″ squares
• 1 Tbsp sesame oil
• 1 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp onion powder
• 1 Tbsp ginger powder
• 1 tsp salt
• ground pepper to taste
• 4 – 5 skewers

1 Combine sesame oil, garlic powder, onion powder, ginger powder, salt, and pepper in a small mixing bowl.  Add cubed turkey breast and cover completely with the oil and powder mixture.

2 Arrange the peppers and the seasoned turkey breast on the skewers.  Take care that the size of the turkey cubes are the same size as the cut peppers on one stick.

3 Grill over an electric grill or a grill pan until the meat is completely cooked.

DISCUSSION
Grilling on a hot plate.  If you are a non-grill owner like me, you would probably be preparing this dish using a grill pan over your stove top.  The temptation is to set the heat to high so the meat will cook faster.  However, there is a risk to burning the rest of the items on your skewers.  So unless you are willing to regularly turn the kebabs while cooking, I recommend that you put the heat setting to medium and let the items cook on one side for the required time for that part to cook.  Further down the road, the amount of time you spend on the subsequent sides will be less as most of the meat would be cooked already.

Additional items on the stick.  If you are not too happy with just having peppers, you can add onions and cherry tomatoes on the stick.  Fresh champignons also make a great addition to the kebabs. The more items you have available, the more kebabs you can make.

Fresh vs. powdered. I used powdered ingredients because they were convenient. As an alternative, you can use half an onion, a thumb sized ginger, and 1 clove of garlic in lieu of the powdered seasoning. Make sure you chopped them up nicely to get out as much of the flavor as possible.

OUTLOOK
What to do with the excess bell peppers.  Personally I do not like having leftover fresh ingredients so I paired the turkey kebabs with a fresh pepper salad.  To prepare this, chop the remaining green and red bell peppers into small squares and combine them in a small bowl.  Add one tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar.  Season with salt and pepper and voila!  An instant side dish.

P.S.  I lost about 4 kg since I started the diet.  Unfortunately I gained 2 kg back when I went to Hannover for an 8-day biotech meeting.  Argh!