Shaved Fennel Citrus Salad with Black Cherry Dressing

I got another new toy – a mandolin – which I realized I actually needed if I wanted to make things like the mini cucumber cheesecakes. Too late for those, for the moment, but not for this delicious shaved fennel salad from Epicurious! (And what a beautiful excuse to use the new salad bowl that my friend who works for Core gave me!)

I followed the recipe pretty closely:
– Shave the fennel bulb into paper-thin sheets (or as thin as you can get them)
– De-rind and -vein orange and grapefruit sections (they just say orange, but the grapefruit was great!They also say you should chop up the sections, but mine had pretty much fallen apart by the time I was done with them, so there was no need. Also, at least with the grapefruit, I found the easiest way was to cut it like you were gonna eat it for breakfast, and then just scoop the sections into the salad instead of into your mouth)

For the incredibly simple, incredibly delicious dressing, mix together:
– Black cherry juice (they say pomegranate but I think the black cherry was divine – and I don’t use that word a lot. They also say to reduce the juice on the stove, but since mine was from concentrate I didn’t have to!)
– Olive oil
– Salt and pepper

Optional – toss the fennel/citrus mix with salad greens of your choice
Optional – sprinkle Pecorino Romano on top of the salad – they suggest this and I tried it and it was super delicious, and then when I was serving the salad to people I forgot to add it and didn’t realize until long after dinner was over, so do what you want