Squid make an easy and delicious dinner. Let your local fishmonger clean the squid for you….but buy whole squid not those frozen calamari rings. Slice them, rinse them and pat them dry with paper towels. This was a two-pan dish. In one I caramelized some onions, added some garlic and sliced up peppers along with some of those little red super-hot chilies – along with salt, pepper and oregano. You can add whatever herbs you like. Loads of fresh basil would be wonderful, for instance. I let everything cook together for a few minutes then added some tomatoes. If I had an open bottle of wine, I would have added a splash, but I didn’t so I didn’t.

Meanwhile, I heated up just a wee bit of vegetable oil in my trusty cast iron pan until quite hot, but not smoking. The deal on squid is that you can either cook them for a very short time – 1 or 2 minutes tops, or for a long time – like stewing them in a pasta sauce for an hour. If you choose door number three (any other amount of time), your squid might be good for any number of industrial purposes but not so great for eating. I cooked mine for about 45 seconds, stirred them about and gave them another 45 seconds. Then I just added the squid to the other pan, stirred the whole business together and served. Very tasty.