served with pan-fried chicken "tenderloins" and
a simple mushroom sauce
Ah, Loyal Readers, you may recall my fear of cauliflower, which I've overcome under Alice's guidance. All my long life I have always avoided fennel, too. I like licorice and anise well enough, but why would anyone eat that flavor in a vegetable? Made no sense to me. Alice, however, is quite fond of fennel. Fine. Just fine. There are 3 recipes for fennel in TAOSF. Fine. I started with the one that most buries the fennel bulbs under other stuff: fennel gratin. This variation buries the parboiled fennel quarters under a bechamel sauce made with parmesan, cayenne and ground nutmeg (I substituted ground allspice). Well, it wasn't half bad. I don't think fennel will ever be my favorite vegetable, but I'd make this recipe again. Now I must gird my loins, tender and otherwise, for the next 2 fennel recipes. They aren't buried.
Fortunately, Randy liked the fennel.
Interesting discovery: if you don't have something a recipe calls for, the internet will serve you up alternative/substitute ingredients in a nanosecond. Cool! How did I survive before Google?
As long as I was bechamelling, I made such a sauce with sliced mushrooms to serve over the pan-fried chicken tenderloins, of which I have purchased a frozen bagful. What the heck is a chicken tenderloin? Is this related to a chicken nugget? Oh well. It's a quick, easy way to get a little protein on the plate. I'm definitely into this pan-frying meat thing.
Otherwise, my day was beyond dull. Project #1: undecorate the tree and box up all the Christmas decorations, ready to put back in the storage closet tomorrow when the cats are napping. (I do NOT want feline assistance with that task.) Project #2: address next year's Christmas cards so if we travel in December next year we won't end up in a spat over the darn things like we did this year. They are ready to go.
I'm still thrilled with Boise State's remarkable win in yesterday's Fiesta Bowl. Those are my boys!
30 recipes accomplished; 275 yet to go
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