Creative Date #27: Get All Up In That Mountain Grill

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Hello DTube and Steemians! It's Friday, that means date night! Next up is Creative Date #27 From my book entitled 101 Creative Dates: ideas, tips, and personal experience from the life of a hopeless romantic. I love creative dates. It is fun to come up with a new idea or put a twist on a classic idea and take a girl out and have fun. I had all kinds of ideas and personal experiences with dating, so I made a book about it and recently published in on Amazon. I decided to post each chapter of my book for free here on Steemit, but if you would like to buy the book you can find the link at the bottom. Don't let "Netflix and Chill" be the default for your dates! Married, dating someone, single, there is something for everyone!

Get All Up In That Mountain Grill

For the nature enthusiasts, going up to a mountain park and barbecuing tasty meats is a fun idea. One of my favorite things to do on this group date is make shish kabobs. To liven it up, barbecue the shish kabobs in a park, then sit down afterwards and watch a movie on a laptop or play night games. Parks in the mountains make the best get-away, but even the neighborhood park will do as a last resort.

What you need for this date:

This date is quite simple. You need to bring blankets, any snacks to go with the barbecue, a laptop (with extra batteries), and Frisbees, footballs, etc. Obviously, all the ingredients you’ll use for the barbecued meat is necessary, and don’t forget the small things like spices and skewers. You’ll need a park that has grilling accommodations, or you could bring your own grill.
For a great dish, you can see the video I have for the kabobs on my cooking show.

Shish Kabob Recipe
I make it different every time but these are the main ingredients that I use.
• Shish Kabob Skewers
• Red Bell Peppers
• Green Bell Peppers (the mildest)
• Orange Peppers
• Pineapple (fresh works and tastes the best, but canned works fine too) Save Juice.
• Cherry tomatoes
• Sirloin steak cut in small bite-sized pieces
• Kielbasa sausage cut in bite-sized pieces
• Mushrooms (buy the ones that are already cut)

Watch my Youtube Video on Beef Kebabs here (old video):

You can add almost anything you want to the kabob. The above ingredients are my favorite ones to use. Make sure everything is cut into bite-sized pieces; usually a little bigger than a quarter. Set them aside as you make the sauce, or you can have someone else put them on the skewers while you work.

(picture from Pixabay)

The sauce is the key to making a delicious kabob.
• Pineapple juice (I usually use what is left over from the can of chunks or buy some)
• Soy sauce (about ¾ cup)
• ½ cup of brown sugar
• ½ cup of white wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar (you can use normal vinegar too)
• 1 Tsp. crushed red pepper
• 1 Tsp. ginger

Combine all of the above ingredients in a small saucepan. On low heat, bring the mixture to a boil and let bubble for two minutes. Put sauce aside.
Take the kabobs and grill them. Make sure to turn them about every 3-4 minutes. The kabobs usually take 10 to 15 minutes to cook, sometimes faster, depending on the heat from the barbeque. When the kabob is done dip it in the sauce. ENJOY!!!

My experience with this date:

(picture from Pixabay)

It was a dark and stormy night. The road was slick from the pelting rain; our car slid several times, each time a bit closer to the edge of the road, with a five hundred foot cliff to its side. No doubt the railing wouldn’t hold if we crashed into it. My date squeezed my arm in terror as we wound our way up the narrow mountain pass. Lightening, then thunder, then more rain . . . it was terrifying. Okay, I’m joking; I just always wanted to start a story that way.

I’ve made the shish kabobs numerous times for group barbecues, however one summer I had the opportunity to do it as a group date. The girl I asked out, Kelsey, was someone I met while playing volleyball with some of my friends. She actually had just moved in with a few girls that I knew and seemed like a fun girl to get to know, so I asked her out. I wanted a buddy of mine, Dave, to come along, but he was visiting from out of town so I had to find a date for him, which wasn’t a problem.

(picture from Pixabay)

This is where things get interesting. First, my friend took forever to get ready. Seriously Dave, don’t you know that rule number one in dating is, don’t be late? So we didn’t wind up picking our dates up until 20 minutes after we told them. They didn’t say anything, but I could see Kelsey peering at me, eyes narrowed, as if looking into my soul and asking, how could you be late, Matt? How?? Or maybe she was just thinking about how great I looked that evening. Could’ve been either.

(picture from Pixabay)

Kelsey looked really good, beyond good, breathtaking even. Finally, we started driving up the canyon to where the park in the mountains was. I planned it so Kelsey and I would be in my car alone. Dave and his date drove up with another friend, Mike, and his date. As we were driving, Kelsey told me that she really doesn’t like camping or outdoorsy stuff. Oops. I told her that she would like this date. We get there and it’s dark already, thanks to Dave and his tardiness. Not to mention it’s frigid. Kelsey then mentions that she also really hates the cold. Oops again. Eventually, we get everything ready and start to make the kabobs, and I find out Kelsey doesn’t like most of the ingredients that go on them. Oops a million times over. As the bitter air chilled our bones, the gas for the grill we brought ran out. Oops, oops, and oops forever. But since Dave and I are big strong men, we didn’t panic; we improvised and used wood instead.

After we were done eating, we decided that it might be too cold to watch a movie in the park like we’d planned, so we decided to go back to Mike’s house to watch the movie. Just to add more disaster to the date, the only movies that we had with us were ones Kelsey had already seen a bunch of times, not to mention that while we were watching it, Mike’s cat kept snooping around the group. And guess what? Kelsey is allergic to cats. She sniffled and sneezed the whole time during the movie. Yikes.

(picture from Pixabay)

I still had fun on the date, and even though Kelsey said she had a good time, I’m not so sure that she did. But it was okay; her and I didn’t connect, otherwise I would have asked her out again. Moral of the story: a little research goes a long way, and oh yeah, don’t be late! And just in case you’ve forgotten one of the most important parts of a date, here’s a reminder: don’t forget to bring treats.

You can find date ideas 1 through 26 here on my Steemit blog. :)

You can find the book here: https://amzn.to/2HEtSQw

The video and book are my original work and owned by me. :)

Video was filmed with a Canon 70D, with a Canon 50mm 1.4 lens, and a Rode VideoPro Mic.

***Background for my thumbnail came from Pixabay.

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