Well guys, I'm from the Gardening and Landscaping site, hence the question. This year I decided to grow Florence Fennel, a bulbing selection of Foeniculum vulgare. The seeds were on sale, and grew very well, and now I have around 40 large bulbs. How do I prepare them to eat? The higher volumes (more concentrated) of fennel used are best, so I can use it all.

This isn't on topic on the main site, but do any of you have any thoughts?

I find that chat on a SE site is ore helpful than a regular QA forum :) Wonder why? it's just chat.

@J.Musser bbcgoodfood.com/glossary/fennel-bulb

This covers the main points

It goes well with pork and fish

Crispy fried sweet chilli pork with a fennel salad - awesome

@J.Musser What a great ingredient to have in surplus! Basically, you can do anything with fennel that you can do with celery, which is just about anything. It's fabulous roasted: foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/…

Pickled: seriouseats.com/2012/02/…

(That one is a quick pickle, so it has a a limited shelf life)

This one will last on the shelf: honest-food.net/foraging-recipes/pickle-recipes/…

This one looks good, for caramelized fennel: putneyfarm.com/2012/04/05/…

And of course, it's great in salads: google.com/#q=fennel+salads

The OP of the octopus cleaning question asked that I remove this from my answer, so I'm leaving it here for posterity: Cleaning a BIG, live octopus (not for the squeamish): Video

why anyone would want to eat it in the first place is beyond me

who looked at that slimy, multi-legged, suckered, bladder shaped thing and thought: 'Bet that would be great deep fried!'

They are a bit chewy.

One of the worst offenders against Elendil's First Law

Yes, one of the ways we are very different. I'm of the "I'll try anything twice" camp.

I'll try it once

It's the having tried things once that caused EFL to come into being

Having had octopus, lobster, fish in general, I can happily say I would prefer never to eat it again

There, to the octopus answer I added a diagram that I kind of made. Sort of :)

I think it's very helpful.

that picture makes it look so appetising...

don't get me wrong, octopodes are fascinating creatures

very intelligent for their size

an almost identical optical system to our own, better even, because the retina and blood vessels are arranged properly

but eat one? Not on your life

lovely, but not appetising

On that one I would agree. He's too pretty to be eaten.

look at that and tell me you'd rather have a bowl of suckers

give me good old-fashioned cow muscle any day of the week!

The steak does look good. Honestly, octopus is not a favorite of mine. I'll eat it if it's served, but I wouldn't go out of my way to order it. Fried calamari, on the other hand, is one of the world's great foods.

you mean these?

Not if they're done right!

meh

I hereby, in perpetuity, cede any and all calamari that may come into my possession to Jolene @#%@#% of Anchorage, AK, USA, Earth

(If I become the owner of a multi-million dollar squid company now I'm fucked)

erm

damn, someone just hacked into my account!

What account?

my stack exchange account

spouted some craziness about ceding calamari then left

Ha!

no future court could in good conscience find in your favour if I did happen to come into ownership of a multi-million dollar squid company, now they know I was heinously hacked

<dusts hands>

I am having breakfast of freshly baked naan made into a grilled ham and sharp cheddar sandwich. Not bad!

would be better with a nice chicken tikka bhuna

I'm sure, but I specifically chose to make naan because I have very little in the way of groceries. I don't even have milk for my coffee. I tried mixing in some plain yogurt. I don't recommend that.

is the supermarket hard to get to?

No, but it doesn't open for another 2 hours.

We have another damn missing plane. This one over Africa.

yup

what's going on with the world

Not surprisingly, they're considering that it was shot down.

I think we need to declare International Everyone Just Chill The Fuck Out Day

stop shooting each other, stop bombing each other, stop ranting on about your imaginary friend, put on your sweats, and watch some mindless TV

have a nice meal

play with your kids

maybe take a nap

Sounds good to me.

I'll leave it to you to get it organised

Here's an ingredient I bet you've never thought of. In the Chopped basket of the episode I'm watching now: Duck Tongues. A few months ago they had duck testicles.

I prefer lark's tongues

much more delicate

U-1000 or so. The peeling is a bitch.

Lovely.

@Jolenealaska Huh, what?

goes to newspaper site

@Cerberus Hate to be the bearer of bad news.

I was having drinks with a friend yesterday, and Joep Lange, the famous AIDS researcher, was her direct boss, in this 40-people institute...

He and his wife have left 5 children.

Oh, well.

At least I didn't know him myself, I guess.

A tragedy like that just branches out, like a crack on a windshield.

Yeah, kind of.

At least the Algerian plane is unrelated...

Some Africans, Frenchmen, and Spaniards on board.

It has been confirmed crashed- just now.

I see.

It may be an accident.

They say the weather was bad.

Yep, a sandstorm.

And the crew had requested a different route (but apparently didn't get it).

I hope that's the cause.

I'm sure it will turn out to be...

Those Touaregs and Islamists there do not have the advanced rocket launchers that Ukraine and Russia have.

That was one of the things that had me nervous. I don't want to imagine extremists having weapons the rest of the world doesn't know about.

Oh, but people knew.

NATO even warned airlines.

But for some reason many still flew over the rebellious area, including many Western airlines.

I'm talking about the African crash.

Ohh...

Yes, well, I think governments know what they have, roughly.

I'd much rather blame a sandstorm.

I'm sure it's that.

you'd think they'd be fairly used to accounting for sandstorms in the Sahara though

how high does the average sandstorm get?

I have not a clue.

I should think not as high as an aeroplane!

They often fly at 10km.

20,000ft according to wiki

normal cruising altitude for an airliner is 30,000 and above, IIRC

Well, I'll be watching for updates, I hope it is confirmed to be an accident.

@ElendilTheTall Sandstorms?? That is high.

@ElendilTheTall Right, 10km is what I read.

'Cause the intentional killing of civilians really pisses me off.

Really??

Yep!

one of them libruls eh?

Haha indeed.

It seems like it's not a good year to be flying :c

No, it has not been a good year for aeronautics. Hopefully, there will never be a worse year than 2001.

glucose intolerant.

GLUCOSE INTOLERANT

That has me a little confused too. Diabetic maybe?

Maybe? Definitely an "unclear what you're asking" though

diabetes.co.uk/glucose-intolerance.html

Is that necessary? Surely a comment asking for clarification is preferable to a close vote?

I did both, and if it doesn't get 2 more (3? I forget) it stays open anyway

Also, if it is an error, it doesn't render the actual question unclear: he's unambiguously asking for a food substitute. It's the extra information he's provided which confused a few people.

I think a close vote in such a situation seems harsh

Not knowing what kind of sugars are tolerable makes it very hard to answer a sweetener substitution question.

It's not getting closed on account of my one vote anyway

Yeah, I heard, I'm disputing the close vote in the first place, not the telos of getting the question closed :P

Different strokes for different folks.

Nice phrase, gonna have to steal that at some point :)

Well, don't credit me. I think Sly Stone would be the one who made it most famous.

wakarimasen

Oh right, I sometimes forget I'm using the Internet.

Okay now I know who you're talking about

@Jolenealaska the "nector" was driving me nuts and I didn't even notice "agrave"

Yep...I probably wouldn't have noticed nector, but agrave made me nuts :)

Hadn't heard of agave, didn't realise that was a typo >-<'

That edit is far more pleasing to the eye, Jole :)

Could you hypothetically take whipped cream and 1% milk and make whole milk?

@Jeremy Sort of. Whipping cream mixed with 1% milk could be a reasonable substitute for whole milk as an ingredient, but it wouldn't taste just like whole milk as a beverage on its own. Of course when you say "whipped cream" I imagine it sweetened, whipped and flavored (usually with vanilla). That would make using it as a substitution challenging.

@jolenealaska well, your new friend came back

briefly :)

@Jolenealaska Gotchya, thanks.

Anytime

@Jolenealaska we have him now

bwahahaha

Oh noes!

Whom have you kidnapped this time?

Another Brit!

Oh noes!

And a fellow Mizzie!

What do you think?

@Jolenealaska What's that?

It's a name for hugerest fans of Les Miserables.

Ohh of course.

Yay!

Tomatoes are acidic, but I don't usually think of them as sour. That terminology in the OP has me a bit puzzled.

I think he just means acidic.

Sour sounds a bit...negative to me.

It does when speaking of tomatoes anyway.

Yeah.

I like their acidity!

I dislike fresh tomatoes

precisely because of their sourness

I used to not like fresh tomatoes, I'd peel them off of sandwiches and burgers. Now I'm not crazy about long cooked tomatoes, but I love them raw and lightly cooked.

then you haven't had my slow cooked marinara

I love tomatoes in any way, shape, or form.