Sambal Chicken Skewers with Pineapple Jicama Salsa

I know, I know... another sambal-centric dish.  But, in my defense, these dishes were eaten a month apart, only blogged right in a row. Furthermore, this Bon Appetit recipe made the cover of the July issue, so the juicy chicken was just staring at me constantly from the coffee table, tempting me.  It had to be made.

A simple, tasty marinade/sauce for BBQ chicken, for sure.  However, for me, like in the case of the sambal/banana/shrimp dish, my Indonesian sambal (labeled "EXTRA PEDAS") was a bit too spicy... I think the heat from the stuff I buy here is several notches higher than the sambal oelek you get in the U.S.   Tim and I had a couple coughing fits while eating this (which may also be partially due to the fact that I cooked this chicken on the cast iron grill pan inside, being too lazy to wait for the charcoal to heat up outside). We did think the flavor was nice despite the excessive heat, though.

I served the chicken with a side of cooling pineapple-jicama salsa and some lime and cilantro couscous.  I think the salsa was the big hit of the night: crunchy, fresh, a little sweet, super healthy... give this recipe a try for sure!

Cilantro-Lime Chicken and Pineapple Skewers

This recipe for cilantro-lime chicken pineapple skewers in last week's Washington Post Food Section caught my eye, and conveniently, I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand.  

Tim and I have been trying to take better advantage of all of the tasty tropical fruit here in Jakarta, and so we had purchased some mangosteens, pineapple and bananas and were able to use about half the pineapple for this recipe and still have half left over for snacking.  

Super easy and quite a tasty recipe... grilled pineapple is so good.  I used bird's eye chilis instead of the serranos called for, and it was a little spicy.  "A little too spicy" seems to be a running theme here, eh? 

Served with couscous cooked with garlic, green onion, a little butter and chicken stock. 

Melon Skewers with Lemon Mint Dressing

Inspired by the cantaloupe that came in my CSA share last week, as well as this Giada Delaurentis recipe, I made these watermelon and cantaloupe skewers with a lemony/mint dressing.

I didn't follow Giada's instructions to the T by any means- I winged it. No amaretto, eyeballed the amounts, etc. Also, I fashioned it as a fingerfood rather than a salad since I didn't want to bother with forks.

Everybody ate them up. Definitely a pretty addition to any summer party.