Before our current spate of wet, blustery weather descended upon us, we had some really nice days. We made the most of them by grilling.

One day we did shrimp. Jon did them his favorite way, grilled with a bit of sugar and tossed with warm lemon-garlic butter over the coals. We had some leftover asparagus from the previous day’s cooking class, so I warmed it up and stirred it into instant couscous, which made a perfect bed for the shrimp in its buttery sauce. Mint juleps accompanied this dinner. It felt like summer.

The following day we had the whole afternoon at home, after doing some shopping up at the Bellingham farmer’s market, so Jon barbecued a rack of pork spare ribs. These weren’t from our own pig, unfortunately, as the ribs in our freezer seem to be rolled up into a log and we didn’t have time to thaw them – we picked up a slab at Haggen instead. But we had no complaints about the final product, after rubbing the ribs with a sweet hot spice blend and slow-barbecuing them in mesquite smoke for two hours. We’re still learning our way around this process, but this batch was very encouraging.

While we waited for the ribs we sat out on the patio in the sweet smoke, ate Sun Chips, and drank bourbon sours. I took the opportunity to go through my seeds and throw out pretty much everything. Ten-year-old lettuce seeds are not really that useful.

When the ribs came off the grill Jon wrapped them in foil and newspapers and let them rest. When he sliced them up we were delighted to see a bit of a real smoke ring! A sight for sore eyes, that.

Last time we visited Kansas City we picked up a bottle of Jack Stack spicy BBQ sauce, and before we served the ribs we heated this sauce up and brushed it on. It’s a good one, hot and rich.

To go with the ribs I threw together a slaw with napa cabbage from the farmer’s market, a carrot, some fresh local radishes and baby turnips. For the dressing I scraped out the remainder of a sour cream container and the mayo jar, added sherry vinegar and a handful of fresh chive stems and blossoms, and stirred it all up. After blending for an hour, it became one of the best slaws I’ve ever made. Too bad I have no idea of how much of anything went into it.

It was a multiple-paper-towel kind of meal. And really, really good.

I don’t know if we make this dish mainly because it’s tasty, or because it’s so much fun to set fire to a panful of shrimp. Probably both.

Shrimp fra diavolo (“Brother Devil”) is a traditional dish, the main idea being a spicy tomato sauce with shrimp, saucing long skinny pasta. The version we make comes from an old issue of Cook’s Illustrated. It adds an extra step or two to the typical recipe, but it’s well worth the effort. If you’ve never flambéed before, give it a try – it’s gratifyingly easy. Just make sure there’s nothing flammable right above your stove burners. You can skip the flambéing step, but the shrimp won’t have as deep and rich a flavor.

First you toss the raw, peeled shrimp with hot pepper flakes, as much as you think you can stand, plus some salt and olive oil.

The shrimp are seared in a very hot pan, then pulled off the heat. Add some brandy (a quarter cup for a pound of shrimp), put it back over the heat, and tip the pan to let the brandy fumes come in contact with the open flame (or use a match)…

Once the shrimp are engulfed in flames, just shake the pan and wait until the fire dies down – it won’t take long for the alcohol to burn off. Scrape the shrimp into a bowl.

After being flambéed, the shrimp take on a slightly caramelized coating, and the hot pepper flavor is really seared in.

Then all you need to do is put the pan back on medium-low heat, sauté minced garlic in a bit of fresh olive oil until golden, toss in a can of tomatoes and some white wine, simmer it down and add the shrimp back in along with some minced raw garlic and chopped parsley. Cook some pasta and toss everything together. A chilled white wine goes well with the spicy shrimp.

I had assumed that we would be eating all kinds of leftovers for days after our end-of-summer party. We did have huevos rancheros for breakfast (with drunken pinto beans and cotija cheese), and chips and guacamole for lunch, but then I realized there wasn’t really much else left except for a large pile of poblano and jalapeño chiles that somehow never got used, plus some leftover grilled corn. I really didn’t want to go to the store again, so I needed to think of something for dinner based on what was on hand. In a fit of fusiony madness, I came up with a sort of Tex-Mex risotto.

I chopped two poblanos and sauteed them in salted butter (I should have added onions, which would have given even more sweetness and depth), then added Arborio rice, followed by a glassful of white wine. I brought a quart of garlic-scented chicken stock to a boil and began adding it to the rice.

Near the end of the cooking time I took several pieces of cooked corn, cut the kernels off the cob and stirred them into the risotto, along with a pile of grated Parmesan.

To top the risotto for dinner, I roughly chopped a few cloves of garlic and sauteed them in olive oil with a handful of peeled shrimp (which I quick-thawed under running water), and seasoned it with salt, cumin and paprika. The garlicky shrimp juices were just what the risotto needed to perk it up. We drank a chardonnay-albariño blend that had a nice amount of both body and acidity.

The leftover risotto was wonderful for lunch the next day, reheated in a nonstick pan until lightly browned. And no, I did NOT top it with a fried egg! I don’t always do that. This time I used a poached egg.

The weather has been amazing (apart from the fun little storm that whipped through on Saturday), and the asparagus has been gorgeous. How many reasons do you need to fire up the grill? This was a fabulous dinner that Jon cooked up last week: an entire bunch of grilled asparagus, grilled shrimp bathed in a lemon and garlic butter sauce, and good local bread. It’s very fast to prepare, apart from getting the coals going, and really, really good.

Jon’s grilled shrimp is a wonderful thing. It gets packed tightly on skewers, sprinkled with sugar, then grilled on the sugar side to give it a bit of caramelization. After a quick grill on the flip side, you slide the shrimp off the skewers into a pan of butter, garlic, lemon juice, red pepper flakes and salt that you have previously melted and kept warm on the side of the grill in a metal roasting pan. The shrimp finishes cooking in the hot butter, but has that lovely smoky grill taste. Parsley gets stirred in at the end, and the sauce is served with the shrimp, preferably poured over grilled asparagus and bread as well. I highly recommend the method.

We almost managed to eat the entire bunch of asparagus, but a little was left over. I chopped it up and put it on top of leftover pizza for lunch a few days later. Mm.

When I decided to make two new recipes for dinner out of a brand new Malouf & Malouf  cookbook (Saha), I figured there was a chance it might be a complete flop, but at least it would look pretty. Fortunately for me, it was pretty and tasty: shrimp with ouzo and garlic, and a salad of watercress, red onion, radish and fried strips of pita bread. It was good enough to make again; a little tweaking is in order for next time, of course.

The most exciting part was cutting a pita bread into thin strips and frying it in olive oil and butter until golden and crispy. That was really, really fun. The resulting croutons were almost like buttery potato chips.

Rubbing sumac and lemon juice into sliced onions was rather fun, too, although I might leave the onions out next time (or just use a lot less). They were rather overpowering – Greg Malouf always seems to start his recipes with “one small red onion” and it’s always too much for me (you’d think I’d learn). The watercress and sliced radishes were simply tossed in with the seasoned onions, and that was it for the salad. Easy.

The shrimp part was also simple: I peeled a bowlful of large shrimp and sauteed them quickly with garlic and olive oil. Before they had finished cooking, I poured in a little white wine and a small glass of ouzo and let the shrimp simmer in the liquid until almost dry (the original recipe calls for arak, which our local State liquor store did not have, shockingly enough).

The shrimp and the salad mounded on plates together was really pretty, and the flavors were lovely. It would have been great with some chilled ouzo, but we had a nice floral white wine that went splendidly as well. So far so good for this cookbook!

Surely we will run out of new shrimp curry recipes any time now. I mean, the shrimp section in our favorite curry cookbook isn’t that big. However, in the meantime, we’ve been keeping a bag of prawns in the freezer – few things make a better quick weeknight dinner – so we’re always up for a new recipe to try.

This curry uses yet another of those ingredients that you pick up in a store, thinking you’ve been seeing references to it everywhere – then once you bring it home you can’t find a single mention of it. This is what happened to us with sumac, although we’re beginning to have a bit more luck on that front. In this case it was fenugreek leaves – we bought a box at a short-lived Indian grocery that ill-advisedly opened in the back of an outbuilding in Burlington, behind the Outlet Mall. Of course, they turned out to be chopped and dried, when our recipes call for fresh or frozen. Sigh.

But still! We followed directions for reconstituting the dried leaves, and the curry turned out fine. It actually didn’t taste very strongly of fenugreek, but it definitely smelled of it – the entire house (and Jon’s fingers) smelled amazingly of fenugreek for days, like a really good Indian restaurant.

The only other change we made to the recipe was to use red bell peppers instead of green, just because we like them better. It was very tasty.

Shrimp Curry with Bell Pepper and Fenugreek Leaves

adapted from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled
• 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• oil
• 2 red bell peppers, cut into small chunks
• 1 cup shredded dried coconut, soaked in 1/2 cup boiling water for 15 minutes, then drained
• 1/2 cup dried fenugreek leaves, soaked in water for 15 minutes, then scooped out (use fresh or frozen, without soaking,  if you have them)
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp cayenne
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 1 bunch scallions, chopped

Toss the shrimp with the turmeric and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Heat 2 Tbsp of oil in a wide skillet and sear the shrimp, only about 30 seconds per side. Remove the shrimp and set aside.

Pour two more tablespoons of oil into the pan and add the bell peppers. Saute until they begin to blister. Add the coconut, fenugreek leaves, salt and cayenne. When all is hot, add a cup of water and the garam masala. Bring the curry to a boil and let simmer for a few minutes.

Stir in the shrimp and scallions. When the shrimp is cooked through, serve.

Back during the summer we had been steadily working our way through the stunning book 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer, but we’ve slacked off a bit of late. Everything from that book has tasted fabulous, but much of it, like a lot of Indian food in general, is very unphotogenic and so not very conducive to blogging.

This week we ended up needing to cook one more dinner at home than we had planned, so I went looking for a recipe that could be made from just what was in the freezer and pantry. This shrimp curry was just the ticket, since we had the last of a bag of frozen shrimp needing to be used, there was a bag of dried grated coconut in the cupboard, fresh cilantro left over from a Thai stirfry, and everything else is a standard pantry item for us. We scaled the recipe down to match the amount of shrimp we had.

The shrimp was a huge success: perfectly cooked with a sharp, clean garlic and coconut flavor, just a hint of tang from the vinegar, and only a little spicy. I cooked a little spinach (also from the freezer) with ginger and green chile to go alongside, and made some fresh chapati (whole wheat griddle breads). The curry was very dry, with the sauce clinging to the shrimp, so rice wasn’t needed. A fantastic weeknight dinner – I wish there had been leftovers for lunch the next day, but we polished off everything.

Garlic Shrimp with Coconut (Lasoon Jhinga)

from 660 Curries by Raghavan Iyer

• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled
• 1/4 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/4 cup white vinegar, slightly warmed
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1/2 tsp peppercorns
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 dried red chiles
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut, fresh or dried
• 2 Tbsp oil
• 1 tsp coarse salt
• 1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Toss the shrimp with the turmeric and refrigerate for half an hour.

If using dried coconut, reconstitute it:  cover with 1/4 cup boiling water, let sit 15 minutes, drain.

Put the vinegar in a small bowl with the cumin, pepper, garlic and chiles. Soak about half an hour, then blend with the coconut and 1/4 cup water until smooth.

Sear the shrimp in a single layer in a skillet, 1 minute per side. Add the coconut puree and salt, stir, and simmer at medium heat until the shrimp are cooked, about 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro.

We threw our End of Summer party this weekend, and boy did we luck out – after weeks of rain and ridiculously cold dreary weather, the clouds parted and we had a perfect, mild, sunny evening. Guests could sit in the sun and not be too hot, or in the shade on the patio and not be too cold. I made Indonesian yellow rice, sesame noodle salad, peanut sauce and chopped cucumber salad, and Jon grilled pork satay, Japanese eggpant and fresh corn. I’m fairly sure nobody starved to death.

You never know what’s going to be left over from these parties. We ended up with a half gallon of my favorite IPA in the world, small quantities of rice and eggplant, and a large tub of sesame noodles. There was also a bag of thawed shrimp in the fridge which I had intended to put out at the party and, well, just decided not to. I got tired. But that meant we had some good lunch fixings today – I poached the shrimp in salted water and mixed them into the noodle salad with a good squirt of Sriracha sauce, all of which was excellent washed down with a glass of IPA.

I don’t really have a recipe for the noodle salad, since I make it up as I go each time. My father did the final seasoning adjustment on this one – it was really good.

Sesame Noodle Salad (makes lots)

2 packages Rose brand Chinese egg noodles
sesame oil
soy sauce
rice vinegar
5 big radishes
4 carrots
1 bunch scallions
Sriracha hot sauce (if desired)

Cook the noodles in boiling water until somewhere between al dente and soft. They should be slithery but not mushy. Drain, and rinse with cold water until cool to the touch. Put in a large bowl with room to mix.

Dress the noodles with a drizzle of sesame oil and toss thoroughly. Then add soy sauce, rice vinegar and more sesame oil to taste, adding a bit of each in turn. The noodles will absorb the flavorings as they sit, so be prepared to keep adjusting.

Julienne the carrots and radishes – Jon did this for me on our new mandoline, which gives lovely even strips, but by hand is fine. Chop the bunch of scallions finely, then add all the vegetables to the noodles and toss. Zucchini would be good here, too.

If you like your noodles spicy, add Sriracha sauce or other chile oil or paste. These can also be passed at the table. Add poached shrimp to individual portions.

I really like noodles – all kinds of noodles. And when the recipe involves pan-searing the noodles over high heat with savory, spicy seasonings, shrimp and scallions, I’m all over it. Especially when I can get my husband to toast the shrimp paste for me.

We actually decided to make this dish as a result of my picking up a bottle of dry muscat wine from our local wine shop. It claimed to go well with spicy Asian food, so we figured we’d make some. As it turned out, it worked pretty well with the noodles – but the wine turned out to be so yummy, next time we might just drink it all by itself!

Penang-style Char Kuey Teow

from Cradle of Flavor by James Oseland

• 8 ounces flat rice noodles (we used dry rice sticks, but fresh is probably better)
• 3 dried red chiles
• 1 tsp dried shrimp paste
• 3 Tbsp oil or lard
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp water
• 2 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 7 ounces peeled prawns
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups mung bean sprouts
• 5 scallions, cut into 2-inch lengths
• salt

If using fresh noodles, rinse and drain them. If using dried, cook them in boiling water – this takes anywhere from 30 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on the noodles. Drain and rinse. Toss the noodles with a little oil to prevent clumping.

Combine the soy sauce, sugar and water in a small bowl and set aside.

To make the spice paste: Stem the chiles and break them in half, then put them in a bowl and cover with warm water. Soak 20 minutes to soften them. Wrap the shrimp paste in foil to make a little flat packet and toast (more about toasting shrimp paste here). Remove the shrimp paste from the foil and put it and the chiles in a small food processor. Puree, adding water if necessary.

Heat 1 Tbsp of the oil in a wok or large nonstick skillet over medium-low heat. Add the chile-shrimp paste mixture and saute until the sauce and oil begin to separate. Scrape the sauce into a bowl and set aside.

In the same pan, heat 2 Tbsp oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook until just golden, then add the chile paste back in. Stir well, then add the shrimp and up the heat to high. Stir-fry until the shrimp is just cooked. Add the noodles and the soy sauce mixture and stir fry until everything is hot through and the noodles have absorbed all the flavorings. Make a well in the noodles and add the egg. Scramble it with your spatula until it sets, then mix it into the noodles. Add the bean sprouts and scallions and stir-fry just 30 seconds longer. Salt to taste and eat immediately.

Of course these weren’t the first green beans we’ve eaten all summer, but they were the first picking from Blue Heron Farm, and they were lovely. I wanted to let them shine as much as possible, so all I did was blanch them, then saute them with olive oil, lots of garlic, prawns and a little white wine. I served them on soft polenta, and the flavors were really bright and fresh.

Polenta isn’t usually the first starch I think of, but I’m always happy when I make it. This batch turned out particularly well. I let it cook long enough to get really smooth, then I beat in a nugget of butter and nothing else – no cheese or cream. I poured it out into soup bowls and let it set, then put the shrimp and green beans on top. Mmmmm.

We had a bottle of Bonny Doon “Le Cigare Blanc” lurking in the fridge (a “cigare volant”, or flying cigar, is apparently what the French call a UFO, hence the alien on the bottle). The wine is a blend of roussanne and grenache blanc, but is very dry. I can’t imagine anything that could have gone better with the shrimp and polenta.