This is a real Saturday night recipe for me, it is very moorish and filling. You may find the rice with the kebabs too filling so you could just serve them with a salad.

I have written the recipes separately because both parts work well without the other. You could cook up the kebabs when doing a large family barbeque and the savoury rice really goes with anything from grilled chicken to steak. The rice is also a great recipe for children because you can hide lots of vegetables in it and it is much healthier than the shop bought savoury rice out of the packets, which include colourings, lots of salt and often MSG (monosodium glutamate).

Chicken kebabs – makes four kebabs easily, sometimes more if you use larger chicken breasts.

2 small chicken breasts

½ red onion cut into chunks

½ red pepper and ½ green pepper cut into chunks

1 large flat mushroom

1 small can of cubed pineapple

8 slices of courgette

BBQ sauce

Simply skewer the meat and vegetables on in a random order until all the kebab sticks are full and have equal amounts of meat and vegetable. Then brush all over with barbeque sauce. You can cook them in a number of ways – either on a barbeque in summer, on a George Foreman style grilling machine or under a hot grill until slightly crispy and cooked throughout. Under the grill it takes around 15 minutes.

Savoury Rice

150g Arborio rice/paella rice or just normal rice

500ml of chicken stock (chicken boullion stock cube) plus 300ml water.

½ red onion finely chopped.

½ courgette finely chopped.

½ red pepper finely chopped.

A handful of frozen or canned sweetcorn.

½ tsp paprika

¼ tsp sweet paprika

½ tsp mild chilli powder.

For the savoury rice, start by frying all the vegetables (except sweetcorn) in a large deep frying pan in some olive oil for 10 minutes until softened. Throw in the rice and stir round for one minute then pour in the stock and the spices. Simmer gently and keep an eye on it. The added water is just a guideline you may need a little more or a little less. Work it like a risotto and keep adding liquid until the rice is soft. It should take around 20 minutes to absorb enough liquid – after 10 minutes add the sweetcorn. Check for taste at the end you may want to add a little extra chilli powder or paprika.