Fennel Apple Salad

Fennel Apple Salad

Score! Simple, known ingredients, light, a real crowd-pleaser. Oh yeah, and really really tasty.

This recipe came from the insert in a weekly box of fruit that a true foodie friend and I get from a subscription to Happy Child CSA, a Community Supported Agriculture offshoot of Frog Hollow Farms. The insert describes the week's fruit, and usually has recipes using the fruit as well.

This particular recipe was to make use of the Fuji apples in the box, but since my apples all cohabitate, I'm not sure one of the apples I used was a Fuji. I'm sure the second apple I used wasn't a Fuji, but I love Pink Lady apples, and their slight tartness is perfect for a salad. I think even diabetic-friendly Granny Smiths would work, sliced thin enough, though I'm apple-neutral, I love all of them.

I've only recently discovered fennel, and am fascinated by its delicate but distinct anise flavor, so un-vegetable like. I love its crisp texture too, and am only slightly put off by its resemblance to celery (which I will hate to my dying day).

Currants and gorgonzola don't normally haunt my pantries, but a trip to TJs for these is hardly a special outing. Fennel, no, that had to come from Whole Foods, again, not requiring much arm-twisting.

I made this salad for a cookie exchange party with a group of mom friends, and didn't even sample it before presenting it to the masses. To my delight, and, apparently, to everyone else's, it was a hit. The salad bowl was nearly empty, which says a lot at a cookie party where no one's touching the cookies! (The hostess's husband good-naturedly wondered why cookies were untouched at a cookie exchange -- 'cause we're all watching our weight of course, and the point is to give away cookies!)

Speaking of cookie exchange, I brought "traffic light" cookies; simple sugar cookies (no leavening agent) rolled out and cut into strips, then holes cut out using a pastry bag coupler (the recipe suggested an apple corer, I don't have one). Instead of food-colored confectioner's sugar as the recipe called for, I sliced spice drops for the lights. My sons had a great time helping me put the candies in the holes.

The fennel-apple salad is so light and tasty and crisp that even weight-conscious moms can afford a cookie or two afterward. And makes for terrific potluck fare!