First try with Fennel

Part of the box of veggies that I received from my CSA participation was a few stalks of fennel.  Fennel's bottom bulbs, stalks, and tops (which look like dill) are all edible.  Since I am not familiar with fennel at all, I had looked up some recipes and decided to give it a try.

Being conscious of how it might not be to my tastes, I opted to keep a bunch of the tops or fronds to use for seasoning.  I cut a bunch, rinsed it, tied it up, and hung it from a cupboard to dry.  After reading about how most people treat it, I think I'll take the fresh fronds and mix it into butter for use when cooking meats or fish.  It sounds like the most delicious way to preserve the crisp flavor.

For the rest of it, I actually discarded the middle section of stalks since there wasn't much of it for my fennel and sliced up the bottom bulbs like I would onions.  From cutting it, I realized the consistency of it was very similar to celery.  So, into a salad it went!

I love having potato salad and because I had potatoes left, I boiled them up for potato salad.  Cut them into cubes and threw in some elbow macaroni.  Topped it off with mayo, minced garlic, garlic powder, salt, pepper, dried basil, and a little bit of milk.  Then, I threw in the chopped fennel bits and mixed it all up.

The result: a refreshing crunch packed with flavor when I had a bite of the salad.  I realized that the fennel flavor was still a little overpowering so I'll be adding in more pasta to offset the amount of fennel I have in the salad overall.  But still, a fairly good experience for my first try with fennel.