Salad:
4 cups chopped broccoli
½ to ¾ cup chopped red onion
¼ cup raisins
8 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled
[optional: 1 tin of water chestnuts, chopped]
Dressing:
¾ cups mayo [not miracle whip]
2 tbsp white vinegar
¼ cup sugar
My JacQuaroo served this delicious salad at MissedMas dinner this past February. It is wonderness. Her mother served it at Miss J's wedding some bazillion years ago* which is where I fell in love with it. And now the recipe in mine!
The funny thing about me and recipes, the moment I feel I've got the recipe down, I seek ways to change it up. I'd never made this one myself, but its a salad for crying out loud. Not rocket science.
Since Mr. B has been so nice as to provide dinner every night for the past month – with the exception of the nights we had dinner at his parents [!!] - I thought I'd demonstrate my culinary skills by making an accompanying salad. And having him cook the bacon for it, because bacon-cooking terrifies me**. But different from the above one mildly; I used pine nuts rather than water chestnuts [JacQueline used pecans at MissedMas, I believe], and I thought dehydrated cranberries might be nice***. I was upset a little at the notion of going without the red onions. I adore onions, and it turns out that onions are one of the very few foods Mr. B doesn't care for. He assures me he'll eat them anyway, but he's been so nice about cooking tomy nitpicky tastes**** that I figure I can accommodate his distaste for onions. He says shallots are okay by him.
The difference? Well, chopping shallots results in the same eyeball burning/involuntary leaking that chopping onions does. Also, shallot juice does the same weird aggravating of thelower knuckle on my right pointer finger *****. Flavour-wise, the difference is so subtle that had I not been looking for it, I likely wouldn't have noticed it. I probably couldn't tell the difference if you fed me shallots and told me they were onions. But Mr. B can, and he prefers them, so.
The verdict? Still a super tasty salad. Although next time I suggest toasting the pine nuts a little, and also chopping the cranberries into slightly smaller chunks. Also! I recommend using the proper sized measuring cups so your dressing doesn't end up, I don't know, say, ubersweet.
Just a suggestion of course.
* Or was it four? Three? Enh, bazillion works.
** I'm strange one, I know.
*** I despise the term 'craisins' for dehydrated cranberries. Yes, the later term has an annoying nuber of syllables, but the former implies some bizarre cranberry-grape hybrid. Also, I think 'craisin' sounds like something rancid, not something one should willingly put in one's mouth.
**** Which he really doesn't know the full extent of since I've been trying to be especially good so he doesn't realise to what extreme my food freakfulness goes – a side effect of this tactic is that I am discovering many new foods I actually like.
***** Don't ask, I can't actually explain that one.
