Em arrived for an early birthday celebration this week and, at her request, we made the Stranger Wings pizza for dinner on the first night, and chickwheat kebabs with coconut rice on her second evening.

She was in Vegas last week for the wedding of her friend, Greer, who she’s known since they were four years old….

The kebabs are an adaptation of a vegan satay James has been making for his various vegan rijsttafel evenings. We all loved them, but had lots of marinated chickwheat left over and decided to have them for dinner again last night. Bid had been for dinner on Friday evening and brought us some luscious corn from Hornby Island, so we had a delightful feast! Here’s the recipe…or process, I guess!

First off, you’ll need to make some chickwheat.

Next, make the marinade.

Chick’n Marinade

Mix together….

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 TBS sesame oil

4 cloves minced garlic

1 lime–zest and juice

2 TBS sambal oelek

1 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 tsp liquid smoke

Next, cut the chickwheat into cubes and marinate in the above mixture for twenty-four hours–you can marinate it for as little as two hours, but it’s MUCH better the longer you leave it.

Soak the required number of wooden skewers in warm water for at least thirty minutes.

Slide the chickwheat chunks onto the skewers, alternating with grape tomatoes, chunks of red onion, mushrooms, red pepper chunks, and fresh pineapple chunks.

Barbecue for fifteen to twenty minutes, rotating every five minutes.

Serve it with a nice big dollop of this peanut sauce:

Peanut Sauce

Blend together in the Vitamix:

1 cup peanut butter

3/4 cup coconut milk

1 shallot

1 thumb-sized hunk of ginger

3 cloves garlic

2 TBS soy sauce

1 TBS Better Than Bouillon Vegetable base

2 TBS sweet soy sauce

1 TBS lemon juice

1.5 TBS sambal oelek

freshly ground pepper

And here is our barbecued feast!!

And our sweet little Poppy–now seventeen weeks old–has taught Stella how to be playful! Who knew good old Stellie-Bellie was a playful girl at heart?!! Now, if Poppy would just stop eating rocks, we’d all be delighted.

And the song of the day is “Fire and Rain” by James Taylor because it’s the first song that came up on the playlist this fine Sunday morning!