by Chef Jeremy Mclachlan

My love and hate relationship for fennel is more on the love side than the hate. Fennel makes me smile by the amazing ways I can use it but it can make me cry the way it takes over my garden and keeps growing and growing and growing!

Fennel is an amazing versatile vegetable because you can use it in four different ways. Way one is the traditional use in salads, sautés and braised with mussels. Next is the spice derived from the seeds and used in Italian sausage and sauces or ground and made into a licorice-flavored salt. Third use is the fronds of this vegetable can be used as a fresh herb flavoring sauces, tossed in salads or to kick up smoked salmon. Last but not least is the hard-to-find pungent pollen that casts an amazing mouth-numbing anise flavor.

When planting this never-ending vegetable make sure you lock it up tight like a caged beast.

This vegetable will jump and overpower everything else in your garden and if you garden you know this is not good. But the nutritional value of fennel is good for you, as Kathy Kingen tells us in her blog Saved by Fennel!

This month I am giving you my favorite way to enjoy fennel — with mussels! As the weather changes these little jewels of the sea are at their prime and ready for consumption. When buying mussels make sure the shells are closed, they smell fresh and the shells have a shine to them. Rinse in ice cold water before cooking to make sure they are nice and clean.

Fennel Mussels Recipe
Makes 1/2 Cup

1 tablespoon olive oil
small pinch of fennel seed
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 onion, sliced
1/2 fennel bulb, sliced
2 pounds mussels, cleaned
1 cup white wine
2 tablespoons butter, unsalted
1/4 cup fennel fronds, chopped roughly

Directions
1. Heat large sauté pan to medium high heat.
2. Add olive oil, fennel seed, garlic, onion, and fennel.
3. Cook for 2 minutes or until vegetables become slightly translucent.
4. Add mussels and white wine and cook until mussels open.
5. Pull away from heat and toss with butter and chopped fennel fronds.