Yesterday I finally pulled the fennel bulb. Last weekend got away with us, and I never got around to doing any cooking, so I didn’t get to the fennel. I’d already pulled the flowers off of it once, so I knew I had to get it out of the ground. I sliced it off at the ground and found what looked like a second bulb growing off the main bulb, so I left that one as an experiment to see if it grew at all. But I tell you, this was the biggest piece of fennel I’d ever seen! Of course, it smelled fantastic as I was picking it and washing it off, and then I needed to figure out what to do with it. I started with the fronds. Fennel fronds have become a must-have for me. I keep them in the freezer because I always add a bunch to whatever stock I happen to be making. It adds such a depth of flavor to stocks. In addition, I have a friend who is allergic to onions, and there are times where a combination of celery and fennel fits the bill perfectly as a substitute for the onions. You can’t just remove the onions, or you lose a lot of flavor, so fennel has become my go-to guy for moments like that.
So the fronds were all removed and stuffed in a freezer bag. Some of the woody stems were discarded, but surprisingly, there were a few stems that were tender and solid- nice pieces of fennel! I trimmed those off the main bulb, and then put the bulb and most of the stems in the fridge for the coming weekend. I sense a roasted chicken and a fennel salad in our future. A few pieces of stem went onto a roasting pan, along with the other contents of the above basket. A few tomatoes, the eggplant, a scallion, some broccoli, and thinly sliced yellow carrot- all from my garden! I roasted them up with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and herbs (rosemary and thyme from the garden) for about 15 minutes at 425ºF. Complete deliciousness in a bowl. The fennel got all caramelized and melty, and everything just worked together so well. It was the perfect side dish for the tacos we’d made and topped with fresh tomatoes and bell pepper also from the garden.
It was days like yesterday that I’m so glad I have a garden to glean from. I took advantage of my morning alone time to go grocery shopping childless. Forgive me for being such a dork, but I love grocery shopping by myself- I can take time to read labels and have a nice conversation in the natural foods aisle about why I would choose brown rice syrup over barley malt syrup. I stocked up on a few things for the impending return of bread-baking, and as I was on my way home, I’d decided that it was time to clean the pantry anyways.
Sure enough, I get home and start putting things away when I spy movement. Those teeny-tiny peanut butter ants had returned. They had obviously not been there real long, they’d discovered the can of shortening and one box of stale Triscuits, so I threw those out and set to work scrubbing. Timing couldn’t have been perfect. I don’t know what it is about these little ants and fat, but that’s what they are after. They didn’t go after the sweet poison like regular ants do, but mix the poison with some peanut butter, or in my case, I used some spreadable butter too since they were in the shortening, and you have ant heaven. Thankfully they’ll take that poison back to their home and share it with all the other ants. There are so many of them though…
So while today I had great intentions of handing the kitchen reigns to Abigail, that remains to be seen. The ant invasion, while under control, causes my pantry contents to be distributed about the counters and tables, so there remains little room for working and cooking. We’ll see what today brings, I have pears that I was going to can today too, but it looks like my kitchen may be on hold for a day or two…