Kitchen Tip Tuesday--Versatile Marinade

Instead of going out and buying a bottled marinade, I make my own with ingredients that I keep in my pantry. What ingredients do I use....olive oil and my choice of spice/seasoning. I put the spice/seasoning in a small bowl and then I wet it with the olive oil. How much olive oil you put it will determine how "hot" you make the spice. You put more olive oil to spice and it will be a "soft flavor. You put just enough olive oil into the spice to wet it and you have just kicked the "hot" of the spice up.

Last night, I fixed grilled chicken, grilled catfish, and potato pockets along with corn. Instead of just having plain old grilled chicken and catfish. I turned up the flavor and made up a couple different marinades.

For the catfish, I made it cajun! For some of the chicken, I made it cajun and lemon pepper. Also for my picky kids, I kept some of the chicken plain(no spice). To grill the catfish, I put one fillet on a piece of foil and then I took my marinade and poured some of it on! Oh just look at the goodness!!

We also had potato pockets last night. Oh were they good. Instead of using olive oil in the pockets, I find it easier to use sticks of butter or margarine because it seems to "stick" to the potatoes more(as you can see from the pic--they got a little crispy because our grill is acting wacky!). For the potatoes, I put approximately 2 TBSP of butter/margarine and then usually garlic powder and parmesan cheese. So that when it is cooking it makes a garlic butter that the potatoes are cooked in! Yummy! If I don't use garlic and parmesan, I'll use cajun seasoning with still using the butter/margarine over the olive oil. I am sure that you could use the olive oil, I just prefer not to in the potato pockets.

I make up a bunch of the marinade at once and I use it on fish, chicken, shrimp, and potatoes.

Here is the recipe:

olive oil
your choice of seasoning/spice

Mix together. Brush or pour on food.

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