Asiago Cheese and Fennel...lovingly paired!

Okay, so anyone who knows me well knows I try to keep my recipes and what I order in restaurants as healthy as possible. One of those ways I try to keep calories low is to leave cheese off most anything I can: sandwiches, salads, etc. I laughed a few months ago when I looked in my cheese drawer at the insane amount of cheese I had! Now grant it, I do have a 16 month old who has a few varieties that are hers but still..there is a lot of cheese! Here is the list I have: shredded mild cheedar, shredded 2% sharp cheddar, block of white mild cheddar, brie, string cheese, snack-size cheddar, shredded mozzarella, sliced muenster, sliced mozzarella, cream cheese and one of the stars of this post...ASIAGO! Okay, so, asiago has a very distinct and bold flavor that I just love but understand a lot of people might not. I bought a large "slice" of it from the Publix deli last week for a recipe I made for my dad's birthday. Staring at the large amount I had left, I decided to try it in a few things and loved it! I also had to buy a fennel bulb for another recipe I made that same night. Fennel has such a wonderful flavor; however, it is also distinct and strong. It has an anise (or licorice) flavor when eaten raw but loses its pungent flavor once cooked and is quite light.

Asiago is an Italian cow's milk cheese and sometimes is the cheese they will grate on your food at an Italian restaurant and is commonly used in Italian pasta, pizza and soup dishes. It is commonly interchanged with Parmesan and romano cheeses. It is normally bought in a hard block texture (aged and shown in picture above) but can also be bought as a soft cheese (fresh). I bought my hard textured Asiago cheese to grate in the filling of a pesto roll I was preparing, but I wanted to use the rest of it in other ways. That is where the fennel comes in.

Fennel, itself, is a plant with feathery green leaves and yellow flowers. Once we see it in the grocery store, it doesn't look as much like a plant but does have a very odd look with it's sprawling green fronds and large white bulb. The fennel bulb (shown above) is treated as a vegetable and has a very aromatic scent. I am sure there are uses for the fronds, but I didn't explore those on this first venture with fennel. I used this in a roasted red potatoe recipe and was actually a bit disappointed in how little the anise flavor came out in the dish. As it cooked, the flavor disappeared into the background leaving a very light, almost oniony flavor behind, which was fine, but I had hoped for a more distinct punch of flavor.

I was left with a huge chunk of Asiago cheese and half a fennel bulb and wasn't sure what to do with either of them. I also had several fresh veggies from the garden, so I made a spinach salad with thinly sliced fennel bulb, grated Asiago, tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh banana peppers (seeded and thinly sliced). I used a tomato-basil dressing I had on hand, and we had one awesome salad! The anise flavor of the fennel paired beautifully with the Asiago while the crunch from the cucumbers and banana peppers made it a fun salad to eat!

I also used the Asiago in a rice dish a few nights ago. I made a simple pot of brown rice and used some of my favorite all-purpose seasoning, Spike, onion powder, a small amount of light butter and topped it with thin slices of Asiago, and it was delicious! Spike is a great low-sodium, all-purpose seasoning as it has about every seasoning on the planet in it without a huge dose of salt. It has 140 mg of sodium in 1/4 teaspoon as opposed to 640 mg of sodium found in a 1/4 teaspoon of table salt that lacks any other flavor other than providing saltiness to a dish. I can only find Spike at my local Publix.

I hadn't bought a new item at the grocery store in a while, so it was fun to incorporate a few new ingredients into my cooking for a few days. So, I challenge you to buy some fennel or Asiago cheese or anything new you have never tried and have at it! :)

*Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia*