Tonight’s winner was definitely the combination of the tare (soy basting sauce) and fresh oyster mushrooms from the farmer’s market. I divided the gorgeous mushrooms into clusters and had my husband (and grill master) baste them with the tare alongside the chicken. The result was a combination of flavors and textures — smoky, sweet, earthy, tender and crispy. Sensational!

Mushrooms Ready for the Grill

Certainly the chicken was good too, but I wouldn’t dumb-down the recipe with my laziness again (what can I say, it was a gorgeous afternoon and I wanted to be outside playing, not indoors rolling meatballs). I bagged the meatballs and used chicken chunks instead, clearly not an equal substitute. Using the spices as a marinade rather than mixed into ground meat didn’t quite work, even with the additions of chicken broth and rice vinegar. Thankfully, however, the tare basting sauce did an excellent job of hiding my mistake. In fact, I think just plain grilled chicken would be excellent with the tare, and would still allow for play-time.

Chicken Kebabs with Tare Basting Sauce

The seaweed salad was also surprisingly easy to make and fun to eat. I have found my go-to seaweed salad recipe. I would even whip this up on a take-out sushi night as I love customizing the ingredients to suit our tastes — less sugar, more vinegar, extra crunch, adding a bit of heat, etc. This is a must to make if you enjoy seaweed salad.

Seaweed Salad