Wild duck and roasted fennel

When we took over the allotment 2 years ago, one of the first things we grew was fennel. Nothing reaally came of it and the bed itself was later used as the location for a temporary manure heap. This may or may not have had any effect - but we found the fennel growing through the manure. So we let it continue growing through the manure was removed. We now have a rather attractive crop of fennel and we picked the first one on Sunday.

This was roasted to have with one of the wild ducks that have been sitting in the freezer since the autumn. The herbs it was cooked with were all home grown. So this was a mainly foraged wild or home grown meal. The trick now is to have the whole meal produced from our own sources.

Always remember to keep the carcass of poultry for stock. If you don't use the carcass straightaway, put it in the freezer until you can use it.

And another tip, we put the fennel leaves into a bag in the freezer along with carrot tops, potato feelings etc. We'll just continue adding to the bag til it is full and then boil it all to make vegetable stock. Then it goes into the compost bin!