Those days when you wake up and realize the house is an absolute disaster, the plants are thirsty, the dust bunnies are about to come alive and yet all I want to do is cook and make more of a mess. The benefit of working in restaurants is you don’t usually have to do the dishes, creative prowess is unleashed when there’s no dishes involved, I swear. But I won’t let my creative urges be tamed, the dishes can pile up, until eventually someone decides to crank some bouncy tunes and get ‘er done. Until then, there’s this rejuvenating fennel salad speckled with sweet pods of the juiciest pomegranate ever, crunchy green and purple pistachios, salty firm organic feta all drizzled with a simple olive oil, lemon and sesame seed dressing. This salad is amazing by itself but I can only imagine would be the perfect side for lamb shanks or grilled chicken.
I know it’s time to get baking delicious festive treats but to tell the truth I haven’t been struck with the spirit yet. Actually it feels a lot more like March than December and I’m not complaining. Though I do hope there’s a bit of snow in Edmonton when we go for Christmas. By then I’ll likely post 7 cookie and treat recipes in 2 days because my mom decorates to the nines and even if there’s not a flake of snow on the ground it’ll still feel like christmas when we get there. Poor mom, she had to take down all her fake snow blankets and move baby Jesus and the crew over to a higher table so that baby Mav won’t pull them all to their demise. He’s getting pretty agile and his absolute favourite thing is to pull stuff off of high tables, but he’s certainly got some guardian angels watching over him. Yesterday he pulled down a light wicker shelf that had a heavy piece of pottery sitting on it along with my heavy golden snale, it missed him by an inch though I think he learned his lesson as it was quite the shock.
- 1 fennel bulb, shaved with a mandoline or very finely sliced with a sharp knife, long green stems can be discarded but keep the fronds for garnish.
- 1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
- 1 Tbs sesame seeds
- 2 Tbs good olive oil
- ½ tsp sea salt
- ½ C pomegranate seeds
- ½ C feta cheese
- ½ C pistachios, roughly chopped
- Add lemon, sesame seeds, olive oil and salt to a blender, you don't have to blend until smooth just so that some of the sesame seeds get broken up.
- Toss fennel with dressing in a large bowl. Top with pomegranate seeds, feta, pistachios and fennel fronds.
