Fennel and Pea Salad with Parmesan Vinaigrette

Me: Hi Google. I have some fennel, peas and mint in the fridge I need to use up. Any ideas?

Google: Why, yes, I do. Here's a few.

Me: Scroll, scroll. Read through a couple of recipes. Voila! Perfect solution and I have all ingredients on hand.  

As a person who enjoys sitting back with a pile of cookbooks surrounding me on the couch, perusing them in a leisurely fashion, I find myself feeling just a little repentant, like I'm offending the authors of my cookbooks or I didn't work hard enough to find the perfect recipe. I know this is silly. I imagine there are many people out there who have never found a recipe in an actual book, just like they've never had to look at a map or write down directions to get to a new location. It's so convenient to find exactly what you need on the internet or use GPS to get to where you're going. The process described above took less than five minutes and the results were outstanding and EXACTLY what I was in the mood for. This same task using cookbooks would have taken an hour and I probably wouldn't have found anything that satisfied my current need. Instead I would've earmarked things that looked good for the future and who knows what I would've ended up eating for dinner. 

Several aspects of internet recipes I do not enjoy at all are the pop-ups, ads and repetitive nature in which many authors approach their recipes. I understand why they do it, but I find it a nuisance and it's one of the reasons I keep my own blog, so I can locate the recipes I like easily and distraction free. 

I still look through my cookbooks on occasion, but it's not the rainy Sunday morning activity it once was. I do appreciate a well-written and photographed one, and will continue to add to my collection.

The original recipe is from a produce store in Australia. I added cucumbers and after I finished eating it, I thought a handful of toasted pine nuts would be a good addition. 

Fennel and Pea Salad

1 small head of fennel

1/4 of a medium english cucumber (optional)

1/2 cup shelled english peas

handful fresh mint, chopped fine

handful fresh dill, chopped fine

1/3 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

1 tblspn olive oil

1 tblspn lemon juice

1 tblspn white wine vinegar

1tspn dijon mustard

1 large pinch of sugar

salt and pepper to taste

handful toasted pine nuts  and a sprig of mint or dill to garnish (optional)

1. Boil a small saucepan of water. Once it comes to a boil, add peas for 2 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. 

2. Use a mandolin to shave the fennel and cucumber into a mixing bowl. Add peas, mint and dill.

3. Mix the cheese, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard and sugar. Stir until well blended. Pour over salad. Top with salt and pepper. Blend and let sit for 15 minutes before serving.  

Chickpea Pan Bagnat

 As my days of working entirely from home start to dwindle, I want to take advantage of the situation as much as possible. Unfortunately for me, this doesn't mean moving to Montana for the next two months to spend my work days surrounded by mountains. Instead it means that I can do things like a weight workout for my arms while listening in on a meeting, or hard-boiling some eggs in between calls. Not very glamorous, I know, but it is practical. I also intend to visit a farmers market once a week to buy all my produce, eggs and some other items. Today was the first time since they opened that I've been able to go. And since I recently purchased a bunch of vegetables at my usual produce haunt, I had to control myself to mostly look and ask questions. It was quiet and the vendors were friendly. I walked away with purchasing only a baguette, but this one item was put to very good use.

When I got myself into picnic mindset (see last post), I had come across this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. I've been waiting for the right time to make it and since I was the proud owner of a large fresh baguette, today was the day. 

WOW! In order to describe how I felt about this sandwich, I want to post a picture of it surrounded with heart-eye emojis. But, instead, I'll try to use my words. As Deb mentions in her post, finding a veggie sandwich you can get excited about is rare. Usually it is heavily dependent on cheese, and I've never understood restaurants' fascination with roasted red peppers and eggplant as part of a Mediterranean style veggie rollup. (I've probably mentioned my extreme dislike of rollups. This was a very unpleasant food trend to emerge from the 90s.) Anyways, this sandwich has it all. It satisfies my nostalgia for an Italian grinder of my youth, my favorite aspect of that being the seasoned oil and vinegar that it was dressed with. It packs a lot of flavor into each bite, and has a solid and gratifying texture with the crusty outer layer of the bread and the crunchy vegetables within. (Not a mouthful of mush like aforementioned rollups.) It was such an enjoyable sandwich eating experience that I can hardly wait for lunchtime tomorrow to put more of my baguette to good use. 

I hope you make this and appreciate it as much as I do. Or, if you are my friend, please come over and I shall make one for you. 

Chickpea mash

1 15 oz can chickpeas or the equivalent cooked from dried

2 tbspns olive oil

juice and zest from half a lemon

few shakes chili flakes

handful of fresh parsley, chopped fine

fresh ground salt and pepper

Assembly of layers

Baguette or ciabatta sliced open in respectable sandwich size

Thinly sliced cucumber - about 5 per sandwich

Thinly sliced roma tomato - about 4 per sandwich (I only had grape tomatoes so used more)

Thinly sliced red onion - small handful per sandwich

capers - 1 tblspn per sandwich

hard-boiled egg, sliced thin, 4 slices per sandwich

olive oil 

red wine vinegar

basil leaves (optional)

salt and pepper

1. In a mixing bowl, roughly mash the chickpeas with a fork. You don't need to work too hard at this, just somewhat mashed up is fine. Add all other ingredients and mix.

2. On both halves of the bread, drizzle olive oil. On one half, spoon a layer of chickpea mash. Place a layer of onions on top of that. Drizzle vinegar and add some salt and pepper. 

3. Next layer is the eggs. Add a row of egg slices then some salt and pepper.

4. Add capers and tomatoes (you could also add olives here), another drizzle of olive oil and vinegar. These are supposed to be wet and flavorful, so don't skimp on this layer of oil and vinegar. 

5. On the other half, layer the cucumbers salt and pepper, and flip this on top. If you are bringing them on a picnic, wrap in foil. If not, put on a plate and cut in half.