Fennel farfalle

A lot of times people ask me "Hey, what's fennel farfalle?" I decided to find out.

Ingredients:
- two large cloves of garlic
- half a big fennel bulb
- half a can of diced roasted tomatoes, sans pesticides. Fresh tomatoes would've done if it were summer here.
- 1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 shakes chili flakes
- salt and pepper

Method:
1. Heat olive oil on low heat, then add the chili flakes and fennel, and cook until the fennel is translucent but not brown -- maybe 15 minutes? Actually, half way through that, add the garlic too.
2. Add the tomatoes and cook on low heat at least another 15 minutes, but longer is fine too.
3. Add the balsamic vinegar and salt. Red wine would work, and according to the top two or three Google results for fennel pasta sauce, ouzo or pastis is good too. But who has those things. Let's stick with balsamic vinegar.

I'm going to keep experimenting with this idea, because it was good, but it could have been better. Also I still have half a bulb of fennel. I think making it a little more sweet, sour, and umami would work. I might add some Chinese black vinegar and miso paste and see what happens (hopefully not throwing up).

Spicy Sichuan noodles

This is sort of a take on the Sichuan cold noodle dish I used to get outside my apartment in Chengdu. Those noodles were more like ramen, they didn't come with bok choy, and they were actually not warm, though, so this is more of a tribute than a successful recreation.

I made the noodles the usual way, but this time I used one egg, and replaced the other one with water. Mainly because I was running out of eggs.

For the sauce, I mixed:

• 3 Tbsp spicy chili oil
• 2 Tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 Tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 Tbsp black vinegar
• 1 Tbsp white sugar
• Ground Sichuan pepper (to taste)
• 1 chopped scallion sprig (just the dark green part)

All amounts are totally approximate.

Then I briefly fried the bok choy and garlic in a pan on high heat with a little salt.

Finally, I boiled the noodles for about three minutes, and mixed them in a bowl with the sauce, and put the bok choy on top.