Butter Lettuce, Radish, Fennel, Blood Orange Salad

Dressing
Mince Shallot and Combine with about 1.5 Tbl. Red Wine Vinegar
Let sit for about 15 minutes
Mix in 1.5 tsp. of country Dijon mustard
.5 tsp minced fresh green peppercorns
salt and pepper
1/4 cup + very good olive oil mixed in slowly and well

While shallots and vinegar are getting to know wash other, cut root off butter lettuce and wash and dry.

Slice Radishes.

Thinly Slice One Bulb of Fennel.

Using a knife, slice skin off 2 blood oranges to remove all white part. Thinly slice.

Toss Lettuce, radishes, fennel and blood oranges.

Toss with dressing.

(If I had been serving this salad with steak, an avocado might have been nice, but tonight with the potato gratin, the dinner was rich enough).

Endive, Fennel, Blood Orange and Avocado Salad

Uschi was my wingman on this one.

These proportions serve 20.

Use knife to slice all skin and white parts off the blood oranges. Squeeze juice out of the slices and reserve. Slice oranges into shy 1/4 rounds.
Slice 10 Endive diagonally. Toss with a few good squeezes of lemon.
Thinly slice 5 bulbs of fennel. Toss with juice of a lemon.
Open and pit 4 ripe avocados.

There are many ways you could assemble this salad. Last night we had a big round platter, so we arranged the ingredients on top of each other in circles.

Put endive down first and over the entire platter.
Layer Fennel on top but closer to the center so you can see the endive on the outside.
Layer blood oranges on top, but closer to the center.
Using sharp knife, slice avocados in radiating pattern while still in skin and use big spoon to scoop out. Fan avocado around the edges of the blood orange circle.

Mix the reserve blood orange dressing with finely diced red onion, a little maple syrup, salt and pepper to taste, and Ojai Olive Oil. Pour the dressing around the platter over the endive, fennel and avocados.

I wanted to put fresh mint on the salad, but could not find it in my packed fridge. So we used fresh rosemary and it worked great.