I bought broccoli and needed to do something with it. Hubby does not like broccoli. But while at the market a woman next to me said she had bought some the week before and it was fabulous. It is locally-ish grown so what more could one ask for? What am I to do? I just saw a blog on broccoli salad with bacon and remembered that I always liked it when it was brought to potlucks by some industrious woman. It is a very tasty salad and when I saw it on https://lynnesrecipetrails.com/2016/04/19/broccoli-salad-with-bacon/ I thought I would try to make it myself. I’ve always thought it was too time consuming and difficult but bacon makes everything better so I went for it. I looked to see if this recipe was in any of my standard cookbooks but it is not. It is, however, in all of the self-published, fund-raiser type collections put together by churches, day cares, and the like. I went internet-ting for the origin but found that there are many variations by different home cooks. Fascinating since there are only five basic ingredients!

This is the sweet salad since there is a bit of sugar in the dressing and of course the raisins add a natural sweetness as well. My recipe said I could use mayonnaise and/or yogurt. I used yogurt and found I needed to add an extra splash of vinegar. I used golden raisins and spring onions. The salad I remember from church potlucks used red onion. While chopping up my ingredients I decided to make only half of the dressing called for and only half the amount of raisins and seeds because 1 cup each seemed like overdoing it for the one bunch of broccoli.

Now for the savory:

I found this broccoli salad recipe in my Soulard Market cookbook. This one has a vinaigrette type dressing. And I had all those ingredients too. Wow, two broccoli salads in one day. I figured that broccoli is a sturdy vegetable and can keep in a salad over a few days so I could have healthy lunches during the week.

Unlike the sweeter salad, this one does not have the broccoli completely raw. It is steamed for about 5 minutes and then plunged into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking and to set the color.

Then everything is tossed together with the dressing which is a garlicky Dijon vinaigrette. Looks savory to me!

Which would you choose? For modifications I think a handful of grated carrots could be an appropriate addition to the savory salad. Hubby tried the first one when I told him it had bacon in it. I think that a handful of grated cheddar cheese would be a fabulous addition to that salad. But even with bacon and cheese I do not believe it will make a broccoli lover out of Hubby. He will eat these to be polite and because he loves me!