Our summer vacation is quickly approaching — or perhaps we are approaching it, depending on your views on the nature of time — and I am too preoccupied with travel plans to concentrate on complicated meals. Plus, it’s hot and I don’t want cook, so there.
The truth is, I don’t want to do anything except sit quietly in a dimly lit room and have someone bring me cups of honeyed mint tea. If I could do that for about three years, I think I’d finally feel refreshed enough to do some full-on adulting, like walking from the living room to the fridge to get myself a pudding cup.
But real life can’t be all mint tea and pudding cups. Real life is vegetables. And the secret to successful adulthood isn’t just eating your vegetables, it’s enjoying them.
My friend Angela makes the most delicious broccoli salad with cheddar cheese and bacon, while my friend Jean favors a recipe with purple onion, peas, sunflower seeds, raisins, chicken and bacon. The common denominator is bacon, that great social equalizer. Bacon is one thing we can agree on in even the most politically charged atmosphere. I would vote for bacon if it ran for public office.
Broccoli salad is just the ticket for warm-weather dining. It’s hearty yet cooling, with crispy-crunchy bits and a sweet-tangy dressing. Broccoli salad is the best supporting actor (some would say star) of picnics, potlucks and backyard barbecues.
There is one bit of cooking you’ll have to do, and that’s the bacon. Of course, you can substitute packaged bacon bits; I don’t mind at all. Obviously you know that bacon is from pigs, and pigs are rather adorable animals with even greater intelligence than dogs. They’re the dolphins of the farm yard. Would you eat a dolphin? Maybe you would if it tasted like bacon.
Start by turning your oven to 350 degrees. Put four slices of bacon on a pan and cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the bacon has achieved your preferred spot on the crunchy-to- chewy spectrum. While the bacon is cooking and cooling, empty one 12-ounce bag of raw broccoli florets into a large bowl (or chop up about 3 cups from a head of broccoli). Some people leave out the stem but honestly, the stem is just as tasty and there’s no good reason to throw it away, unless a bear were chasing you and you threw broccoli at it to slow it down or confuse it. But why did you let the bear into your kitchen in the first place? Tsk, tsk.
Put the chopped broccoli in a bowl. (I also added 1 cup frozen peas, even though the U.S. Department of Agriculture says you must cook frozen vegetables before eating them for food-safety reasons. You may not want to take that risk.) Add ½ cup dried cranberries, ½ cup chopped pecans and a full cup of grated cheddar cheese, the sharper the better.
For the dressing, whisk together ½ cup of Greek yogurt and ¼ cup mayonnaise. If you don’t like mayonnaise — it is, after all, pretty gross — then dispense with it altogether and add ¾ cup yogurt. Add 2 tablespoons honey (or any other kind of sugar if you don’t have honey), 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar and ¼ teaspoon each salt and lemon pepper. Add more salt if you like, but keep in mind that the bacon and cheese are also salty.
A note on the dressing: This is not a lot of dressing. It will thinly coat the ingredients but not obscure them. That’s because I don’t like a lot of dressing. If you do, you can double the recipe; if that’s too much, then the dressing can always be saved to adorn another salad.
By this time, the bacon may be cool enough to touch. Chop it into little bits and stir them into the salad along with the dressing. Mix until everything has an even coating of dressing, then serve it immediately. You can make this salad ahead of time, but you might want to hold back the cheese until the last minute because those grated cheese bits can get kind of soggy.
In conclusion, a warning: This salad is goooooood. But large quantities of cruciferous vegetables are a lot for any digestive system to handle. Be kind to yourself and others by showing some restraint. Whatever you do, don’t give any to the bear.
Broccoli Salad
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
3 cups chopped broccoli florets (about one 12-ounce bag)
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped pecans
Dressing:
½ cup Greek yogurt
¼ cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
¼ teaspoon lemon pepper
¼ teaspoon salt (or to taste)
Set oven to 350 and cook bacon for 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, whisk together yogurt, mayonnaise, honey, vinegar, lemon pepper and salt. Add broccoli, cheese, cranberries and pecans. Crumble or chop bacon into little bits and add to the salad. Stir thoroughly and serve immediately. Keeps fresh in the refrigerator for two to three days, though the cheese may get soggy. On the other hand, cheese is cheese.
