I currently have a refrigerator overflowing with so many glorious root vegetables and soup is one of my favourite ways to use them when I find myself in this state. Plus after a long day soup is both an easy and nutritious meal which can be prepared easily while planning a holiday on the phone with my mother.

People underestimate soup. Too many people think of it as a tinned (canned) emergency food, the sort of thing you plop into the microwave and give your kids as an easy afterschool snack or chuck into food drive boxes at the supermarket. This is soup that’s often heavy in salt, sugar, and who knows what other preservatives and colourings. Not that I’m completely against this (confession time: tinned tomato soup + grilled cheese (non-dairy of course) is a junk snack craving I get about once a year that must be filled).

What I’m saying is I don’t really get the idea of tinned soup for ease of preparation, because there aren’t many things you can do in the kitchen easier than making soup from fresh ingredients. Sure you have to wait a little while longer past the simple process of using a tin opener and pressing some buttons on the microwave, but it’s worth it in the end. I promise.

Did I mention we got rid of our microwave?

Recipe notes

This is, like most soups, a recipe easily prepared by even the greatest kitchen novice. I usually use my pressure cooker for soups, but if you don’t have one that’s okay too; it will just take a bit longer to prepare. If you aren’t using a pressure cooker simply follow the same instructions, only in a large pot, cooking the vegetables until tender.

It turns out Duncan likes raw fennel, and here’s proof:

Last night I caught him as he took a bite of wood out of the corner of a bookcase. Yes, he ate it. I’m not sure what’s worse from a cat point-of-view: fennel or wood. I would opt for the latter, but it is of course very possible I am missing a magically nutritious supplement in my attempts to avoid wood in my day-to-day food preparation and eating habits.

With my Abel and Cole deliveries I receive a weekly newsletter (available online), each containing a few simple recipes. I was grateful for the newsletter that came with my first box because they sent me fennel and, believe it or not, I’d never tried this vegetable before. Anyhow, the newsletter contained a recipe for orange-fennel salsa, which is for the most part what my recipe is based on (I have only adjusted some ingredient uses and quantities).

When people heard I had never consumed fennel (aside from the seeds in little bowls by the door at Indian restaurants), they have been astounded.

“But you love liquorice!” they would say. “How can you not have tried fennel?!”

The truth is, I have been told many times I should try it, but neither my husband nor his kids are keen on it so I figured it wouldn’t be worth bringing home. I must remind myself of a couple of things, the first being that what I just mentioned is a very poor excuse for not trying new things myself. The second is that they will try anything once, and I’ve managed to get all of them to eat foods they would never have considered otherwise (which is not surprising as their general view of eating a vegetable is boiled and served with one of two condiments: salt and/or butter).

There’s also a third reason, that being if I’m going to bust my arse in the kitchen then everyone will bloody well eat what I put on their plates. This too is something I think they mostly understand.

But do not worry, for there is hope with this recipe for die-hard fennel haters. If the flavour is too overpowering for you, leave this salsa to sit for a few hours. The flavour will mellow substantially, to the point where the potent aniseseed flavour of the fennel is brought down to a very mild level. On the other hand, if you love this flavour, serve the salsa as fresh as possible.