Quick Pickled Fennel

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Inspiration! Isn't it just key? Key!

My fully-fantastic friend The Hostess, who is just the peachy keenest, is forever inspiring me to reach for the stars when it comes to my cooking. She is such a natural talent I just can't help but be in awe.

Seriously, every idea she has just sounds so yumlicious, it makes it hard to resist heading right to the market whenever we finish chatting.

This, for example, was her idea. We were talking cheese plates (you do that all the time with your girlfriends too, don't you?) and somehow ended up rhapsodizing about fennel and pickles and well, the rest is pretty obvious...

Pickled fennel. Tart, tangy and salty with a hint of sweetness and a whisper of something divine. It is just too, too perfect with an assortment of cheeses and a well balanced gin and tonic. (Or, um, you could pair it with something non-alcoholic if that is your thing) Crisp, simple and sassy.

So try this my peaches, and taste the joy.

1 large bulb fennel, sliced into large matchsticks
1 cup water
2 tablespoons salt
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
3 sprigs thyme
1 teaspoon fennel seed
1 teaspoon white pepper corns
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup minced onion

Have your chopped fennel in a glass bowl or jar.

In a medium sized sauce pot, simmer all of the ingredients except the fennel. Let simmer for 3 minutes to meld.

Pour the pickling solution you have just made over the fennel. Let rest 3 hours and up to 1 week.

© 2008 Fresh Approach Cooking

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© 2008 Rachael at "Fresh Approach Cooking" www.freshcatering.blogspot.com This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, or at the aforementioned url, the site you are looking at is guilty of infringing upon terms of copyright.

I am growing fennel in my garden this summer, I got the seeds from Seeds from Italy.

Burpee's best-selling new vegetable last year was Golden Mama, a yellow-fleshed, egg-shaped tomato designed to make paste. It cooks down to a golden-yellow sauce instead of the unattractive grayish-brown that other yellow tomatoes typically produce.- WSJ.com

Are fennel and anise the same thing? No. Fennel is truly a vegetable and should not be confused with the herb, sweet anise. Even though they share a similar mild sweet licorice flavor, fennel comes from an entirely different plant. - Tony Tantillo.com