Grilled Orange-Glazed Bok Choy Skewers

Grilled vegetables are one of the delights of summertime - okay, ANYtime!  While the veggies pick up those pretty grill marks, they also develop beautiful sweetness from some caramelization time over the flames.  At the same time, as long as they don't spend TOO much time over those flames, they are simultaneously tender and crisp.  SO good!

I fell in love with bok choy as a grilling veggie a couple of years ago when I found tender, small heads at the now long-lamented Right By Nature store in the Strip.  Oh, I've used it in stir fry for many years, but until that day it never occurred to me to try grilling this sweet and crunchy, frilly green-skirted relative of cabbage.  

The Right By Nature "small" heads were probably a good 8 to 10 inches long.  Last week I was perusing the piles of veggies at Lotus Foods in the Strip, hoping to find small heads again.  Find small heads, I did!  These were teensy, tiny, beautiful little baby bok choy...cute as the dickens!  The smallest were probably 2-3 inches long...adorable!  The "big" ones 3-4" long...perfect for threading onto skewers whole.  

Grill them I did...right alongside a couple loin pork chops and dinner was soon served.  It made for a healthy, low calorie, high fiber dinner, too!  Oh, and those teensy, tiny ones I still have in the fridge?  They're destined for the dinner table stir-fried whole.  Yum.   

Grilled Orange-Glazed Bok Choy Skewers

• 8 small heads bok choy (about 4" long, if you can't find it this small, cut larger bok choy into pieces)
• 1/2 sweet red bell pepper, cut into large cubes
• 1/2 purple onion, cut into wedges

• 2 T. orange marmalade
• juice of 1 orange
• 1 T. hoisin sauce (gluten-free to make this GF)
• 1 T. soy sauce (wheat-free tamari to make this GF)
• 1/2 t. granulated garlic
• 1 t. honey
• 1 T. vegetable oil
• 1/2 t. 5-spice powder
• 1/4 t. red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1/2 t. dark sesame oil (optional)

 Alternate veggies on skewers - if you use bamboo skewers, be sure to soak them in water for an hour before threading veggies onto them (you don't want the bamboo to catch fire!)

Whisk the glaze ingredients together well.

Place veggie skewers on a hot grill, baste with glaze several times while grilling and remove when veggies are tender crisp.

NOTE:  Although the skewers are prettiest when you alternate the bok choy, peppers and onions, cooking time for individuals veggies is more accurate if you put like veggies on separate skewers.  i.e. all bok choy on one, all onion on another, etc.  

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