Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Broccoli Salad

It's spring! Or summer, as it is starting to feel like here in Florida. It's time to break out the salads. I just recently had a broccoli salad at a local cafe and I went gaga over it. It was delicious, it was crunchy, it was sweet and it was full of broccoli!

After I dissected the ingredients I discovered that I had all the ingredients at home. It was a forgone conclusion that I was going to recreate it as best as I could.
I cut up a bunch of broccoli, and included a lot of the stems.

If you cut the stems all the way up to the florets, you can then break the broccoli up into little flowers without having to chop them into crumbly bits. I like to keep broccoli as intact as possible.

Here are some of the other cast of characters. I used a little mayo (maybe a tablespoon) and about twice as much yogurt to make the dressing. I also added in a bit of onion powder to the mix. I just whisked it all up to combine. You may like more mayo or less, just taste it before you pour it over the salad.

I grate my own cheese, so that's the cheese in the background, in the black container.


Here we have broccoli, walnuts and dried cranberries. I add the dressing to this and mixed it all up real well. Toss toss toss. Then I added in the cheddar cheese. Probably a 1/3 of a cup. Toss a few more times and then serve or refrigerate.


This is the finished product. I think I used a lot more broccoli than the restaurant used. I have no idea what the dressing was from the restaurant, but this dressing is wonderful. It is tangy, from the yogurt and it goes so well with the crunchy from the walnuts and broccoli and sweet from the cranberries. My husband said that the cheese makes it the cheesiest! He's such a comedian.

Ingredients:
Broccoli - chopped and/or broken into florets
Dried Cranberries
Walnuts - chopped
Cheddar Cheese - shredded
Mayo and Yogurt dressing

Mix and eat

Have a great day!
Kristin

7 comments:

Keetha Broyles said...

Story time:

Once upon a time a long, long LONG time ago when I was pregnant with my third baby we ate out at a restaurant that had a salad bar.

They had a lovely broccoli salad on the salad bar. It tasted sooooooo good to my pregnant self so I ate and ate, I know not how many helpings of it.

I went home to go to bed and I was in total and COMPLETE misery. Misery. Misery. Misery.

Lesson learned: raw broccoli + Keetha = METHANE GAS.

No more raw broccoli pour moi!!!

sunnymama said...

Sounds so delicious! thanks for the recipe :)

Lori E said...

I love broccoli salad and have a recipe that is always a hit too.
I have enjoyed poking around your site and find you to be funny and creative. I look forward to reading more.
Quick Nascar story:Vegas,with friends for guys birthday, at my first race, I'm 5' tall and of course couldn't see a darned thing with everyone standing. After a bit of action I asked the last guy standing, who was right in front of me, if he could sit now so I could see it on the screen.
He snarled at me that every one stands in Nascar. Things got a little ugly after that and luckily he wasn't back the next day for the main race. The men behind me however were and every time someone stood up even to go to the concession stands any where around us they would all yell out "Sit Down" and start laughing. They made a bad situation funny.

country girl said...

Your recipe sounds delicious. I will give it a try. Thanks.

Chandy said...

Love that recipe! I'll have to try that soon. My goodness my cookbook file is getting so fat! But who cares right? The more selection, the better! Thanks for the recipe!

Judith Bridger said...

Two broccoli notes:

1) Broccoli, walnuts and cranberries are all Cancer Fighting Foods!

2) A chef's tip on cooking broccoli (actually my nephew Alan H.): Cook broccoli in boiling water that has been salted until it tastes like sea water. Don't steam it, boil it. ...one minute, two minutes...whatever it takes to get it Just Barely Done!

My note on that is that he is right, it's awesome, very green, excellent cold. Try it in Kres' salad. lm

"J" said...

OH MY GOSH - This looks and sounds soooooooooooooooooooooooo good!!!!!!