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Spicy Fennel with Olives & Orange – Slow Cooker Style!

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

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anise, fennel, recipe, slow cooking, vegetables

fennelHappy 2015, everyone!  Here’s a wonderful slow cooker dish I recently discovered in my Williams-Sonoma New Slow Cooker Cookbook (by Brigit Binns).  Do you think of veggies in a slow cooker as mushy, dull and flavorless?  Well, as I’m learning, that’s simply not true.  This cookbook is full of contemporary slow cooker dishes with crunchy side dishes like corn salsas or wonderful salads with easy vinaigrettes.

If you’ve never cooked with fennel, I promise it’s actually quite easy.  Don’t get weirded out by its funny shapes in the picture above.  Once you slice off the green tops you have something similar to a small onion in size to work with – and like an onion it’s got lots of fantastic layers…but unlike an onion, fennel’s flavor has a subtle hint of black licorice.  So nope, no eyes tearing up like you might sometimes experience chopping an onion.

This dish is perfect as a vegetarian or vegan main course (just substitute vegetable stock for the chicken stock called for) or as a side dish.

Serves 4

  • 2 fennel bulbs, about 1 lb (500 g) total weight
  • 1 T extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
  • 1 large shallot, minced
  • 4 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 – 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, to taste
  • 2 T dry white wine
  • 1/2 tsp white wine vinegar
  • 1/3 C (80 ml) chicken stock
  • 2 sprigs fresh oregano or 1/2 tsp dried oregano
  • Salt and freshly ground black pepper (1/2 tsp salt to start)
  • 1 orange
  • 1/2 C (75g) pitted kalamata olives, halved

Cut off the green stems and feathery tops and any bruised outer stalks from each fennel bulb.  Chop the feather tops to yield 2 T and set aside.  Quarter each bulb lengthwise, then halve each quarter lengthwise and trim away the core, leaving just a little of the core intact to hold each wedge together.  You should have 16 wedges.  Place the fennel in a slow cooker.

In a small, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat, warm the oil.  Add the shallot and sauté until lightly golden, about 4 minutes.  Add the garlic and pepper flakes to taste and cook for 1 minute more.  Pour in the wine and vinegar and stir to dislodge any browned bits on the pan bottom.  Stir in the stock, oregano sprigs (or dried oregano), 1/2 tsp salt and several grinds of pepper.  Transfer the contents of the pan to the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on the low setting for 2 1/2 hours.  The fennel should be tender but not mushy.

Just before the fennel is ready, grate the zest from the orange and set aside.  Then, trim away the remaining rind and segment the orange.  Coarsely chop the orange segments.

Using a slotted spoon, transfer the fennel wedges to a warm platter.  Taste the braising liquid and adjust the seasoning with salt pepper and a little more vinegar, if needed.  Spoon some of the liquid over the fennel wedges and scatter the fennel tops, olives, grated orange zest and orange segments over the top.  Drizzle with olive oil and serve.

Fivenineteen notes:  the flavors in this dish are incredible.  The orange adds a sweet, sunny note, while the red pepper flakes bring a little spicy heat.  The black olives are earthy and salty, and the anise-flavored fennel tops add freshness.  Delicious!

I used a 3 quart slow cooker with a ceramic insert, and I could have probably let the fennel go a full 3 hours, rather than the 2 1/2 hours the recipe calls for.  You’ll want your fennel tender, not mushy, so keep an eye near the end to see what works for you.  I try to avoid opening the slow cooker lid as much as possible as it interferes with the cooking process; the slow cooker will take a while to readjust to the right temperature after the lid is opened and that hot, moist air escapes.  But sometimes you need to open it and check your food’s progress.

If you’re using fresh oregano springs, strip off the leaves from the stem and tear gently.  No need to mince them before adding.

It didn’t seem like there was enough braising liquid when I was sautéing the shallots, garlic and adding in the vinegar and wine.  But it turned out great, and I’ll definitely make this recipe again.

Buon appetito!

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Holy Cow, am I Eating Again??

14 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by fivenineteen in Uncategorized

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bloat, chicken, conversation, cookbook, fennel, food, Goodwill, party, people, primal, purge, seafood

Again? Already thinking about what to cook for dinner tonight?  After last night’s Seafood Fest?

I have that wonderful post-bloat feeling of fantastic food at a fantastic party.  And I feel relieved that I don’t have to wear anything snug today.  Just another lazy Sunday, where the only thing on tap is making a run to Goodwill, read and pick up a few things for dinner.  No hockey tonight.  Summer season wrapped up with a disappointing shootout loss in our playoff game.  I had a major Silpada jewelry event that same night which trumped hockey (rare, because hockey is usually on Sunday nights), so I found out about the loss through my teammates.  Bummer.  Is it October yet??

Yes, Goodwill.  A purge here in the ol’ townhouse is very, very overdue.  Sometimes I struggle getting going on a home project.  I get overwhelmed and then end up procrastinating, doing nothing.  I look at the clutter building up here in the home office.  And the guest bedroom which is still crowned the Room of Crap and Good Luck Getting to the Ironing Board.  Hmmmm.  This is NOT OK!! 

So what do I do?  I play a mental game with myself, and break down an overwhelming task into smaller pieces.  Every time I need to go downstairs to the main living room/kitchen level here, I make myself take at least one thing out of the home office or the guest room that needs to go.  And I start a pile downstairs near the dining room.  Repeat as needed!  

Voila – in about 24 hours I had a couple large garbage bags full of old computer shit, knick knacks, books, jewelry, shoes and clothes that are ready for Goodwill! The cute, stuffed polar bear I won at the Puyallup Fair a couple years ago doing Skeeball?  Sorry, dude, you’ll make a kid happy in your next home.  Remember the Left Behind book series from the 1990s?  I’d purchased the entire set over time and never cracked open a single one of them, despite numerous raves from many of my friends – even my grandfather.  Le Sigh.  If I haven’t read them after 15 years sitting in my bookcase then it’s time for someone else to.  Also in the “outta here” pile: a set of 4 glass beer mugs I maybe used once in 20 years.  THAT feels good.  I looked at the hodge podge of a dozen mismatched wine glasses currently on the floor in the guest room and considered getting rid of them too but I decided to keep them.  THOSE are good to have for larger parties.  I just need to box them up and get them out of the guest room!

Larger parties…what a segue. I’ve been looking forward to my new consulting firm’s annual Seafood Fest.  The staff has been buzzing about it ever since I joined the group in July, and I’m sure they’ve been in planning mode far earlier than that. “Are you coming?”  “Can you make it?”  “Can’t wait to see you there!”  I probably heard this every time I sent in a timesheet or collected my pay stub.  The energy was contagious!

And the party was amazing, just as I expected.  Our CEO hosted it in her home as she does every year, and just about everything on the menu was made by her and her team from scratch.  Right down to the homemade ice cream, her signature dessert!  Her home is fantastic for entertaining.  She has a front yard with enough room for a large table and chairs plus a couple of grills and a drink stand, a large kitchen and great room on the main level inside, and a huge back deck with room for multiple round tables, mingling and the incredible view looking west toward Puget Sound and across the water to the Kitsap Peninsula (and I think some of Whidbey Island too).  

I soaked in the view with a nice glass of Sauvignon Blanc and enjoyed meeting other fellow consultants and chatting with our CEO, T, and her team!  What a great team.  This really didn’t feel like a work-related party…it felt like family.  Really and truly.  T LOVES to entertain…and it shows.  Party for 80 guests?  No problem, right? 

Seafood fest knocked it out of the park.  I’m kicking myself for not getting any pictures of the food with my phone but it was unbelievable.  This year the theme was Caribbean, so we had jerk chicken and beef on the grill, blackened halibut (our CEO caught the halibut herself off of Vancouver Island earlier this year – she had the video of it playing in the living room!), rice and bean side dishes, salads with papayas and mangoes, chips and wonderful salsas, and even a couple of pizzas!  Dessert was a choice of pineapple or lime-flavored cupcakes, and two kinds of homemade ice cream – pineapple and vanilla with a little cinnamon.  Simply incredible.

And the weather turned out decent too – it was a little cloudy during the day but thankfully burned off later in the evening.  This summer really hasn’t been a summer, so I was happily relieved we had a warm evening last night!

Great people and great food.  There simply is no better combination out there.  And so many reasons to celebrate!

Now it’s time to get started on dinner.  While I might not be super hungry after all that wonderful food last night, it DID inspire me to keep honing my cooking skills.  I’m pretty good at it, I must say!  Practice, practice, practice.

Tonight it’s another dish from the Primal Blueprint Cookbook I’ve posted about a few times before.  Chicken and fennel stew with, onions, garlic in a broth of beer and coconut milk, garnished with fresh parsley.  Can’t wait!             

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