Chicken Spiedies

When I moved here I noticed a weird murky-looking marinade at the grocery store.  It was called 'spiedie marinade'.  It's avaible in bottles or you can buy pre-marinated meat.  I had no clue what it was.
It turns out it's a regional dish here in central New York.  As with many dishes, there is debate as to who invented it, wth several people taking credit for it.  Anyway, it's a Binghampton thing.  Meat is marinated for a long time and then grilled on skewers.  Once it's cooked, it's served on a roll.  The original spiedies were made from lamb, but are more commonly made from chicken or pork now.  It's also used for venison, which makes sense given all the deer around here.
I bought a bottle of spiedie marinade.  It smells like Italian dressing. I soaked some chicken tenders in it for a few hours. It was pouring, so  I didn't bother with skewers or charcoal, or bread.
The speidies were tasty - salty, tender, and with a slight flavor of garlic.  I could see why they'd be tasty in a sandwich, especially with beer.  Rugrat liked them too.  I don't know what it is with regional Binghampton cuisine though - they are seriously into salt, with the salt potatoes and the spiedies.  I'm glad I didn't serve them together.

New Toy: Char-Broil Infrared Grill

OK, so I had a brief respite from my grill lust when I got the BBQ/smoker, but after a few days the gas grill lust returned.  The smoker is good for the weekends, but I'm hungry and tired when I get home from work.  I wanted to be able to throw some meat and veggies on the grill and eat within 30 minutes.
I got lucky on Craigslist - the full story is posted on my other blog.  Suffice it to say I am now the proud owner of a brand new Char-Broil Red infrared gas grill.  I like it pretty well so far.  There are settings for high heat (clean/preheat) sear (for steaks, etc), grill, and BBQ/smoke.There is a U-shaped pan so grease never drips directly on the flame.  That's good for me since I was always having grease flare-ups in  my old mini-grill. I think the pan also serves to radiate/diffuse the heat so stuff cooks quickly and evenly.  There were mixed reviews on the grill and the infrared.  A lot of people really like it, and Consumer Reports gave it a high rating, but some people got lemons or were die-hard BBQ or gas grill snobs.  Anyway, so far my grill isn't a lemon (knock on wood) and I'm always open to new technology, so I'm happy.
Last night I cooked some chicken breasts* and zucchini.  The zucchini was a gift from the lady that sold me the grill.  The chicken cooked in about 10 minutes, and the squash took 15.  As it was cooking, it smelled really good, like a rotisserie chicken.  That was a good sign.  My old mini-grill always was pretty smoky due to the flare ups.  At five minutes I took a look at it. It looked done on that side so I flipped it.  At ten minutes it was done.  I let it rest while the squash finished.  Anyway, the chicken was really good - it was fully cooked but not charred on the outside, and it stayed very moist inside, even though I hadn't brined or marinated it. The squash was better than usual, but not perfect.  I've never had much success with grilled squash.  All in all, I was pretty pleased with my first attempt.  I'm looking forward to cooking other stuff on it.

*  this is my standard quick meal, so it's a good test.