These chicken and vegetable skewers are delicious and an easy way to get a range of protein and vegetables on your plate. The marinade makes the chicken super taste and it’s actually quite flavoursome just by itself. But that sauce is bright and delicious too and kind of takes things to a new level.

Plus it means you’re getting even more vegetables in and it looks pretty! I know skewers are an easy thing for you to just buy from the supermarket. But there’s a reason why they’re so cheap – they’re easy to do. Unfortunately the convenient super market ones are often loaded with sugar thanks to the marinades on them. Making your own marinade in a blender isn’t very time consuming and it’s so much better for you.This green herb filled marinade is full of both goodness and flavour.

I love marinating the mushrooms too. They soak up the flavour and get great colour on the grill. You can keep the stalks and chop them into a stir fry or pasta sauce at another point in the week. Or do what I do and throw them in an omelette one morning.

You can prepare most of this meal the night before and just grill the skewers when you’re ready to. Even if you don’t do that it wont take long to pull together. The cook time for skewers is delightfully short so they only time consuming thing is waiting for the capsicum to roast for the sauce and threading the skewers. Putting the marinated meat on the skewers is a little messy but you get more marinade on the meat if you marinade it off the skewers so this is always my preference.

I promise these aren’t hard to make, I’m feeling a little lacking in motivation lately so I’m all about easy and delicious food. I’m juggling lots of different things and don’t have as much time to spend in the kitchen as I’d like… or as much time for sleeping and looking after myself. I’m really looking forward to spending the long weekend slowing down a little and switching off, and of course mucking around in the kitchen. What are your plans?

Serves 4

Ingredients

500g chicken breast

2 zucchini

200g mushrooms (button)

Chermoula

1/2 bunch coriander, stalks included (well rinsed)

1/2 cup parsley

1 tsp toasted cumin seeds

1 tsp sweet paprika

1 pinch cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp turmeric, ground

3 cloves garlic

1/2 cup spring onion, roughly chopped

1 Tbs olive oil

3 Tbs water

pinch of salt

Juice and zest of 1 lemon

Harissa Sauce

1 red capsicum

1 tsp olive oil

1 red chilli

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1 Tbs olive oil

pinch of salt

2 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp cumin

2 Tbs water (to thin as needed)

Directions

Place all the ingredients for the chermoula into a blender and process until a thick sauce forms. Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and toss in the marinade along. Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and add to the chicken and marinade. toss to combine. Set aside for 15 minutes – 1hr. You could marinade the chicken over night and then just add the mushrooms 15 minutes before you’re ready to cook. Soak 8 skewers in warm water.

Harissa:

Preheat oven to 190 degrees celsius. Line a small baking tray. Cut the capsicum in half and place on the tray along with the red chilli. Put a peeled garlic clove in each half of the capsicum and drizzle everything in the 1 tsp of olive oil. Roast for half an hour or until starting to blacken at the edges.

Allow to cool until you can handle the capsicum, remove the seeds and stalk and place in a blender along with the whole chilli (stalk removed), garlic cloves and all other sauce ingredients excluding the water. Blend and add the water if you think it is too thick. Set aside.

To cook:

Slice zucchini into 1cm thick slices. Thread, chicken, mushrooms and zucchini onto skewers, alternating as you go. Brush a BBQ grill or pan with olive oil and heat on medium high heat. Place skewers on the hot gril/pan and allow to cook until golden, a couple of minute, then turn. COntinue iuntil all sides are golden. Remove from heat. Serve with harissa sauce drizzled over and cous cous and lemon wedges on the side.

HH. x