Around our house, we tend to get a little wave of the blahs most Friday evenings… we’re tired from the week and ready for the weekend but not quite energized for it yet. Anyway, this Friday was no exception. Grant was gigging and would be home for a late dinner. I got a sudden urge to cook something exciting but didn’t want to spend too much money. I found a really beautiful fennel bulb and bought some tilapia. I looked on the internet for a pasta sauce with fresh fennel. I found a really simple one and then, of course, altered it a bit. It went something like this…

1 fennel bulb, trimmed and thinly sliced

olive oil

very finely chopped red onion (I sauteed it a little as I don’t like raw red onion)

Lady Smokey’s orange fennel sea salt

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano

I mixed all these ingredients together and then combined with capellini pasta. (For store bought, I really like Montebello brand from Italy. It is organic and very affordable. It’s the best!) Grant cooked the tilapia which we ate on the side. He did a classic lemon-garlic-butter-lightly dusted with flour thing… it was delicious!