If I do say so myself

          One thing I have learned from both my mother and my grandma Tet is that no recipe is set in stone. Improvisation is the best skill in the kitchen and it has become my general approach to cooking. That is not to say that a good recipe should not be followed and read through carefully, but it simply goes with the Italian notion of using what you have, making it work, and being creative, passionate, and original with food. Wednesday night was a perfect example. One of my favorite childhood dishes was roasted sausage, peppers, and onions. It is a simply divine combination of Italian flavors. The sweetness of the onions as they caramelize balances the saltiness of the sausage in a way that leaves your taste buds so satisfied that they barely know what to do when they get hold of the roasted pepper! I was prepared to make this dish just like my mother had taught me so many times yet there was one problem: it was 8pm, everything was closed, and I had no onions. So I decided to change the dish a little bit. Instead of sausage, peppers and onions, I made sausage, a singular yellow pepper, and fennel. I remembered that I had purchased a beautiful bulb of fennel 2 days earlier and was planning to make braised fennel but I thought that when roasted, the fennel would really complement the flavor of the sausage in a different way than onions did, changing the dish completely. I combined two different fennel recipes and ended up sautéing everything  individually before putting it into a baking dish just so that all of the ingredients could have a nice brown, crispy bite. I sautéed the fennel in butter of course and added it to the pan with loads of fresh dill and a generous amount of white wine. It was phenomenal if I do say so myself (my grandmother use to always say this after complementing her creativity in cooking) and I was definitely pleased to have put a new spin on a dish I grew up on. 

Sausage, fennel, yellow pepper, and dill
roasted in olive oil and white wine.