Vietnamese Squid Salad
I made this for the first time this weekend. It was really quite tasty, but seemed more like a summer thing to me. So, I'm pretty sure I'll be making it a lot this summer. Very healthy. No fat, no carbs.
This recipe is supposedly from Jacques Pepin. (Although I did no research to find out if that's true or not.)
Squid Salad a la Binh (as modified by me)
(Makes 4 small salads)
1 pound squid, cleaned
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 red chile pepper, minced
1 cup very thinly sliced onions
3 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
A few thinly sliced basil leaves
lettuce
Prepare dressing: mix garlic, chile, lime juice, fish sauce, sugar and salt together. Slice onions. Mince a tablespoon or two's worth of cilantro stems and toss with the onions and dressing. (I use only the stems at this point because they have a lot of flavor and can stand up to the acidity of the dressing.)
Bring water to boil in a large pot. Cut the body of each squid crosswise into 1-inch slices and the tentacles into 1/2-inch pieces. Add the squid to the boiling water and cook for about three minutes, stirring occasionally, just until the water returns to a boil. Do not overcook. Drain immediately.
Add warm squid to the the dressing, onion and cilantro stem mixture. Toss, cover and refrigerate. (I made it the night before I planned to eat it.)
To serve, add chopped cilantro leaves and the slivered basil to the squid mixture. Toss. Spoon on top of lettuce leaves.
Eat!
Tonight's dinner (and tomorrow's leftovers). Whittled down some romanesco cauliflower, tossed it with some olive oil and salt and stuck it in a 400 degree oven for about 25 minutes, tossing it a couple times. Got the water boiling for the pasta. Chopped up some garlic and threw it in a pan with some olive oil, butter and salt, then added some breadcrumbs until everything got toasty. Then I took the crumbs out and set them aside. Put the pasta into boil. In the same pan I cooked the breadcrumbs in, I added about a tablespoon of olive oil, some more garlic and some red pepper flakes. As the pasta approached the end of its cooking time in the other pot, I added the roasted romanesco to skillet with the olive oil and garlic, tossing it around a little bit. Then I added a healthy coating of finely grated Pecorino Romano and then the drained (now finished) pasta. I also added about a quarter cup of pasta water and stirred everything around until it got creamy and melty. Dumped it in a bowl and then sprinkled the top with the breadcrumbs. (I saved and refrigerated the rest of the bread crumbs, because they're always delicious on top of these veggie pastas.)
4 cloves of garlic, minced 
