There is just something magical that happens on summer nights. All the lightning bugs twinkling in the trees, a crackling campfire, a clear night sky, coyotes howling off in the distance, and friends gathered outside just to take it all in. It’s just the best.

My favorite summer evenings are when we gather with our friends outside at our bar, everyone brings over big old steaks, and we throw them right over an open fire on our homemade grate my husband made for over our campfire pit. Everyone brings a side dish, we have food galore, and later make s’mores into the evening. Why does grilling in the summer taste better than doing it any other months?

My new thing this year is kabobs. Chicken, steak, and shrimp loaded on a skewer with peppers. I can’t get enough! I’m so ready for our first cookout for the year with our crew and making a bunch of these. Our crew is such a fun bunch. It seems food always brings us together. Meeting for dinner at different restaurants every weekend or in the summer around a fire like I was saying. We are so incredibly blessed to have the friends we do. They are family. We are all just happy to be together.

So whether you see your friends weekly, monthly, or try as often as you can in these busy lives we live, pick up your phone, call a few friends, and with a little prep you can have a hot summer night filled with these delicious, simple kabobs and pair it with a simple salad, side of beans, and macaroni and cheese. These are the kind of nights that make memories. And I am an old sap when it comes to makin’ memories!

Food brings people together. Hot summer nights bring people together. I like to make it happen and for you to have fun simple recipes to enjoy on nights like these.

Enjoy them while it’s this time of year and spend time with the ones you love.

Kabobs

Ingredients:
• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut in chunks and seasoned with chicken seasoning
• 2 steaks, cut in chunks and marinated
• Red, green, & yellow peppers cut into small squares
• Kabob sticks (soaked in water)

Steak Marinade:
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 1 cup sweet cooking sherry
• 1 garlic clove chopped fine
• 1 tsp. Ginger

Mix well in bowl and throw in steak, place in frig. (Let steak marinade at least 4 hours, if you can. The longer the better!)

Place the seasoned chicken and marinated steak on kabob sticks and place peppers in between as desired. You could add any veggie you would like if you don’t like peppers! I brushed some BBQ sauce on my chicken kabobs, but you
don’t have too. Just have fun with them! (If you do shrimp, I just used the Garlic Herb and Wine McCormick’s season packs for seafood and chicken.)

Easy Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients:
• 2 cups of uncooked pasta
• 1 quart of milk
• 3 cups of extra sharp shredded cheese
• 1/2 cup of butter
• Generous amount of salt and pepper

Mix butter and pasta in casserole dish. Add all the rest of the ingredients and stir lightly. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.