School's Out for Summuh

Not that it actually makes much difference in terms of what I do on a daily basis, but the semester ended a little over a week ago. At this stage in graduate school, I pretty much should be steadily working on research regardless of whether classes are in session, but it is still really nice to not have any immediately pressing deadlines. I did manage to take one wonderful restorative week off after I handed in a revised proposal to do a tremendous amount of cooking. I cooked as many blogworthy meals in last week as I did in the month before. As will become clear by the pictures below, David and I had access to a grill at the house he was 'sitting' while its owners were on vacation, and we grilled like it was going out of style, cramming a whole summer's worth of cravings into a week.

But first, I continued to use up some of what we had in the fridge. This will continue to occupy me as we are leaving this apartment in a little more than a month and we need to use up all of the food in the house. This was Fusilli pasta with fava beans, and cilantro-tahini sauce. This used up the last of some homemade yogurt, some cilantro that was losing its green, a box of pasta, and some of the tahini I bought to make hummus. I used up the rest of the frozen mixed seafood and a package of rice noodles to make yellow curry noodles. Curry paste is the ultimate convenience food. Mixed with a can of coconut milk and some vegetables, curry paste makes a quick, luxuriously rich and filling meal.
I've had an octopus in the freezer for months now that I have saving for a special occasion, which never really came around. But I saw a recipe in the new your times that seemed easy and appealing so I decided to try it out. The basic format of the recipe was good, the octopus bakes and slowly tenderizes in its own juices and a hefty amount of olive oil and garlic for more than an hour. But as it was written, the recipe would seem pretty bland. I added a tablespoon of paprika to make it more interesting and ensure that it had a deep red color, and ended up adding quite a bit of salt, though the recipe says to add it only 'if needed.' I cut the potatoes into very large chunks, as suggested by the recipe, and they still came out a bit over cooked, so I next time, I would cut them smaller, brown them separately and add them to the octopus closer to the end of cooking time. Still, the rich garlicky broth was delicious sopped up with some bread, and the leftovers the next day were even better.
Perhaps it will become a tradition, but we marked the end of the semester with another cheeseboard from capone's, though more modest than our last few. This one had two semi-firm sheepsmilk cheeses, a pecorino toscano and a french sheepsmilk that was wonderful. We also picked up a bottle of cheap Côte-du-Rhone, and what Capone's called "perhaps the best salami we have ever had." If they still have it, it is definitely worth getting.
Thus began the week of grilling. First, we made grilled portobello mushrooms. I made a marinade from olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, sherry, and fresh rosemary from the balcony. They grilled up perfectly juicy and plump like steaks, fulfilling the promise that grilled mushrooms hold out as a satisfying vegetarian option that is so often broken at restaurants.

I served the mushroom steaks up with a green bean salad with grape organic tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese.
Craving some grilled fish, we went to what is probably Boston's best fish market, New Deal--described in this fish blog, and got a red snapper to grill up. The marinade was from Rick Bayless's version of the chile-bathed grilled Pescado Zarandeado that you get in Puerto Vallarta.
The next day, we had a lunch of Vietnamese fresh spring rolls, filled with hoisin-marinated tofu and fresh herbs, and homemade peanut sauce. These were so flavorful, fresh, and light, and invovled no cooking at all, only assembly.
We also picked up some of the freshest, largest shrimp I've ever seen at New Deal Fish Market. They were wild-caught Florida gulf shrimp. I used some of the left-over marinade from the fish and grilled the shrimp with the shell on so they could get lots of grilled flavor without drying out. The trick is to cut through the top of the shell down the length of the shrimp with a sharp knife to clean out the 'vein' and make for painless shell removal when your eating them. Across the street from New Deal is Mayflower Poultry, with a big sign stating "fresh-killed poultry" and we picked up a whole cut up chicken. I marinated it with tandoori spices and yogurt overnight. Yogurt makes for a bit of a messy grill, but chicken always comes out so tender and juicy after a yogurt bath that its worth it. Sake made for a bit of an odd pairing, but we needed to spend more than $10 at the Japanese market where we bought the spring roll wrappers in order to put our purchases on credit card.
At Shaw's supermarket, we meant to pick up some hamburgers for the most traditional of grill fair but ran across some wild Alaskan salmon that looked too fresh to pass up--particularly compared to the pale, color-added, polluting, farm-raised atlantic salmon that crowds the fish counter most of the year. Its accompanied by grilled leeks with mustard dressing.

We still would have picked up some burgers, except that these 'naturally-raised' baby-back pork ribs seduced us. I made a dry-rub from an unreasonable amount of spices which grilled up into a smoky-sweet crust as they slowly tenderized on the grill. We grilled up some sweet plantains to serve with organic avocado guacamole.
Rounding out our week of grilling was warm grilled mangoes and plums with vanilla ice cream and a balsamic-Chinese-black vinegar reduction. Chinese black vinegar is sweetened and spiced, so its perfect for reducing to a syrup for deserts or glazes. This was a great way to round out our week of grilling.