A couple of new recipes tried

May 11, 2011 — Ned Raggett

So a little catching up here — over the weekend, I did something which I thought I had tried before but apparently not, a zucchini, fennel and white bean pasta:

Zucchini, fennel and white bean pasta

Quite delicious — the recipe is here, and as always I removed the salt (seeing as the goat cheese would add enough as it stood).

The other day, wanting something a little lighter, I settled on a snow pea and carrot salad with miso-tamari dressing:

Snow pea and carrot salad with miso-tamari dressing

Now this to me was the real winner, good as the pasta was — a wonderful blend of flavors and textures all around, and a very simple recipe at that. More stuff to come later in the week…

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Orzo salad with radish and fennel

April 21, 2011 — Ned Raggett

Orzo salad

This was kinda nice to find, a good way to use a variety of different things I had around at once. Here’s the recipe — a great dish for the hotter days.

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White bean fennel soup

January 31, 2011 — Ned Raggett

White bean and fennel soup

Made this up last week and have been dipping into batches since. Great stuff, and as I love fennel I couldn’t ask for more. The recipe came from one of my CSA mailouts:

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 small fennel bulb, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 5 cups reduced sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth
• 1 (15 ounce) can white kidney or cannelini beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups shredded fresh spinach

In a large saucepan, saute onion and fennel in oil until tender. Add the broth, beans, tomatoes, thyme, pepper and bay leaf; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until fennel is tender. Discard bay leaf. Add spinach; cook 3-4 minutes longer or until spinach is wilted.

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Sweet potato and fennel soup

January 11, 2011 — Ned Raggett

Sweet potato and fennel soup

Meantime, this is really what I was all about this week. The recipe itself is a fine one but I really wanted an excuse to finally test out a Christmas gift I was really excited about, this Bamix professional immersion blender. My old blender died a while back and I wanted to make the switch to a hand blender for ease and to not have to worry about shlepping things back and forth. Worked like a dream and damn if this wasn’t good. (And a little crispbread to go with never hurts.)

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Butternut squash and fennel gratin

August 6, 2010 — Ned Raggett

Butternut squash and fennel gratin

Been meaning to put up the next NJTT entry today but I’m kinda tired. So — a meal from the other night, using this recipe. It was a nice way to use both some squash and fennel I had around before the next basket arrived for me the following day. A fair amount of prep but it was tasty!

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Fennel soup

February 10, 2009 — Ned Raggett

I’m quite fond of fennel, and have spoken about it before, but wasn’t too sure what to do with the latest big bulb I had. Given the colder weather I wondered if a soup would be an option, and a quick scrounge on line turned up this excellent recipe, which I highly recommend. It’s quite simple and the result’s tasty as heck; if you’re not entirely fond of fennel’s strong taste, the cooking here mellows it out nice. A little bread with Danish blue cheese worked nicely with it.

The recipe itself is for a larger batch than I made, so adjust accordingly:

—

* 1/4 cup butter
* 5 fennel bulbs, trimmed and quartered
* 1 (32 fluid ounce) container vegetable broth
* salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium heat.

Add the quartered fennel bulbs; cook and stir until golden brown, about 10 minutes.

Pour in the broth, and simmer until fennel is tender, about 15 more minutes.

Ladle into soup bowls, and season with salt and pepper.

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Herbed beets with fennel

July 11, 2008 — Ned Raggett

Yes, I’m on a food roll this week, but hey, why not?

So the story here in part is this — some months back I posted this beet risotto recipe I’d tried out and according to a friend that post is now somewhere in the top ten or twenty posts on risotto with beets or the like in Google. Won’t say no.

Thus inspired I figured why not give another beet recipe a try, since I had some in the basket. As I had a lot of fennel I wondered if there was a combination recipe out there and it turns out there are plenty, but this one took my fancy — this is the page it’s found on. The difference is that I did not have any vermouth, so I simply substituted water and the thing still tasted great.

Which it did — I was quite pleased and a little surprised at how rich but mellow the dish come out as. With the cooking toning down the fennel a bit while the beets’ natural flavoring and the mustard combined nicely, not to mention the chives, I was quite pleased with this one, and it’s been a week of good eats. Give it a whirl if you like! Follow the link provided for the recipe, and please note the comments and suggestions as well.

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Roasted potatoes and fennel

February 19, 2008 — Ned Raggett


Seriously, who needs deep frying. This was a ridiculously delicious and filling dinner, and the test of the fennel after roasting is indescribably great.

—

Roasted potatoes and fennel

Ingredients:
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes
2 medium heads fennel (about 1 pound)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon fennel seeds

Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450F and put the rack in the middle position. Put a large roasting pan in the oven to preheat. Quarter the potatoes. Cut off and discard the fennel’s stems and bottom end. Cut the bulb into pieces roughly the same size as the quartered potatoes. In a large bowl, toss the fennel with the olive oil, salt, pepper and fennel seeds.

2. Pour the potatoes and fennel onto the preheated roasting pan.

3. Roast, turning and tossing them occasionally with a spatula, until they’re tender and brown in spots, 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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