Grilled Teriyaki Chicken and Vegetables with Brown Rice

For most people, the term "grill master" conjures up images of a 40 year old man standing over a flaming grill, whipping out perfectly grilled steaks. This is the image you see on TV and in movies, and I suppose this is probably fairly accurate for most households.

But not at our house.

In our home, grilling falls under the broad category of "cooking" and almost all things cooking fall under the category of "Tanya's responsibilities". Not that I mind. I enjoy grilling and like playing with fire as much as your average man.

More practically, though, I view the barbeque as a secondary cooking appliance, the equivalent of my kitchen stove and oven for the summer months. It is sweet relief on a sweltering day (you know, we do have 5 or 6 of those every year) to have a reliable means of cooking that doesn't heat up the house and results in food that tastes as good, and frequently even better, than your standard kitchen fare.

For the last 8 years I barbequed on an old gas barbeque we found at an estate sale. It worked. Kind of. I mean, it did alright as long as you like most everything well charred. We ate a lot of unintentional "Cajun style" meals. This spring as I manually lit the barbeque, struggled to correctly place the always-slipping-and-falling grill grate, attempted to rescue flaming chicken and then ate the resulting charred-but-not-done-in-the-middle chicken, I informed my husband that I was finished. As much as I loved to barbeque, I couldn't handle it anymore. No meal is worth the frustratingly near tears experience this barbeque evoked in me.

Then he reminded me of my upcoming birthday. He asked if I would like a gas barbeque for my birthday. Would I ever!

The search for the right gas barbeque began. Daniel and I are the type to thoroughly research what we buy. We are very frugal and like to get a good deal, but we also understand that it is sometimes worth making an investment for a higher quality product. We looked at gas barbeques in the stores, talked to salesmen, and then went home and read reviews online. We repeated that process again. In the end, we decided on a Weber. It seems like you just can't go wrong with a Weber gas barbeque. I mean, how many items have a full 5 stars on Amazon.com?

On Sunday, we bought one, brought it home and put it together. Last night I made hamburgers and grilled corn on the cob. I told Daniel that I still needed to figure out how this grill works. His response? "So, what are you grilling tomorrow night?"

I hadn't thought about it. I figured it might finally be time to get creative grilling.

Here is what I came up with:

Grilled Teriyaki Chicken and Vegetables with Brown Rice

I collected my ingredients: red onion, bell peppers, pineapple, and chicken marinating in Teriyaki sauce.

I preheated my nice new, fancy schmancy grill.

 Like how I improvised by using my vegetable steamer with the red onions?

Inside, I mixed some Teriyaki sauce (this is currently my favorite brand), some chicken broth and a little cornstarch together.

 

While the chicken and veggies cooked, I thickened this sauce to add to the deliciously finished meal.

Here are the results still on the grill:

 Here are the results chopped up and mixed together in a bowl:

And best of all, here is the finished product on my plate ready to be devoured:

And yes, it was delicious. Absolutely delicious.