Nutrition Rears Its Ugly Head
For some unbeknownst reason my Bride wasn’t feeling so brilliant on Saturday so for lunch I decided that I would make some soup-type concoction. I had bought some fennel at the ShopRong and decided to give that a whirl.
I cut the two bulbs into roughly 1/2 inch cubes
and then put them in a big straight-sided sautee pan with, oh, probably four tablespoons of olive oil on med/high heat to get nicely a sizzling, added some pepper and salt and let it begin to brown up, stirring every thirty seconds or so
after five or so minutes I threw in some carrots because a) I had them, b) I like them, and c) most importantly they add both a nice visual contrast and the sweetness of the carrots would (I hoped) compliment the mild “bite” of the fennel
after another 3-4 minutes of lazy stirring just to let the browning continue and for the carrots to warm through I added enough buzzard stock to cover everything by about 1/4 inch
then I covered the pan and let everything simmer for 15-20 minutes and reduce down slightly (this also really helped the carrots to soften)
and then into the bowls
Very tasty and, frankly, disgustingly healthy. The anise-with-a-slight-spicy-bite flavor of the fennel melded well with the full sweetness of the carrots, and the chicken stock is a nice base to hold it all. A good lunch for a Winter’s Day.
Thank god I used the chicken stock, because my general rule of thumb as a beastly carnivore is that something MUST DIE for every one of my meals.
Swill Food and Grog | Mr. Bingley | 
February 14, 2012 7:14 am
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I hope your Bride is feeling much better and did she get a nice glass of wine with that soup? For medicinal purposes only…
No, but I drank one for her.
I’m big that way.
I noticed a certain canine wasn’t nosing around in the photos… Haven’t seen him in awhile (hint, hint…)
@ Julie lol – I suspect fennel didn’t appeal to the canine in question. And the chicken stock was probably a bit toooo diluted.
P.S. – a shot or three of Southern Comfort would have been good. (It’s one of those ‘drink it and wake up 3 days later feeling fine’ things for colds – good old TN/NC mountain moonshine works even better but tends to get the revenoors out…).