Meatless Friday: Mommy’s Fennel Delight

Mommy’s Fennel Delight

(prep time: just over 20 minutes)

1 c pasta shells
2 potatoes, peeled and diced
1 T each of olive oil and butter
1 fennel bulb, sliced thin (put your fennel tops in your stock bag)
3 carrots, sliced as thin as you can get them (I peel mine because we don’t buy organic; also, save some carrot nubs for the kids to gnaw while you cook)
1 onion, chopped
1 T minced garlic
1 T crushed dried sage leaves (more or less to taste)
Sea salt & black pepper to taste
1 c leftover rice (we had instant brown rice leftover from Vegetable Fried Rice)
Grated Parmesan or bleu cheese crumbles to taste

Heat a large (not stock pot size, but the next size down) pot of water to boiling, add some salt, and boil pasta and potatoes 7-9 minutes or until desired tenderness. Meanwhile, heat oil and butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat and add fennel, carrots and onion, stirring frequently. When vegetables are crisp-tender, add garlic, sage and salt, and keep stirring. Add leftover rice. When pasta/potatoes are ready to drain, spoon about 1/2 cup of the pasta/potato water into the skillet; reduce heat to medium-low and cover. Finish draining pasta/potatoes (over a sink this time) and add pasta/potatoes to skillet. Serve immediately. Top with cheeses to your liking.

I’ve only recently started using the pasta water. Growing up, I’d heard that you’re “supposed” to use the pasta/potato water, but for what? A friend lent me a copy of Ginny’s Gems recently, and there was a bit in there about thickening sauces with your pasta water. Oh, so that’s it! Now I know. Knowing is half the battle. What’s the other half? I don’t know.

Gluten-free folks could probably just boil up more potatoes in lieu of any pasta.

Vegans could take a note from Cutting the Cheese, who recommended to me elsewhere to try this recipe here but with cannellini beans. I’m a recent convert to cannellinis, as youse all saw with kale-stuffed sweet potatoes, but I’m inclined to agree that cannellinis would be great in Fennel Delight.

Ahem. Mommy’s Fennel Delight.

Copyright 2013 Erin McCole-Cupp