Or: it’s not Terry’s, it’s MINE.

You see the title of this blog? Well, it’s a bit out of date nowadays. It’s almost a source of shame to me: I live in a city so I don’t have a car. How can I drive like a maniac when I’ve got no wheels? Well, there are ways and means, dear readers. I may not have my red cinquecento (YET – one day it will happen …), but if you substitute ‘cooking’ for the word ‘driving’ I’m still well within the realms of reality.

I’m part of a group which has a fortnightly ingredient challenge, and the current one is fennel. Now, there are lots of ways to work with fennel. You can eat it raw, you can eat it cooked, or you can use the seeds. Then you can get creative and start making syrups and liqueurs.

After that, you can get a bit crazy and start baking cakes.

Yep, I went there. I made a chocolate-orange fennel upside-down cake, and lo! it was good. So because I’m nice (and not in the least because I’m trying to make you lot into maniacs, too), I’ve published the recipe over at my cooking blog, Quasi Siciliana (which, by the way, you should totally bookmark and like on Facebook and comment on and stuff).

Anyway, as regards the cake, squash your feelings of weirdness about vegetables at teatime (yes, I know you’ve got them) and give it a go. From start to stuffing it in your mouth takes less than an hour, and the chocolatey-orangey-sponge-with-a-hint-of-liquoricey-goodness is – if I do say so myself – delicious. Buon appetito!