Broccoli Slaw (or the best stuff EVER)

Let me just tell you, oh.my.goodness. This is phenomenal. I'm SO glad I made a double batch! I was perusing Smitten Kitchen's website and found being pregnant is causing her to crave broccoli so she made THIS recipe. There really wasn't much need for me to make adjustments but I will note them in Red. Also remember I doubled her recipe, I'm going to post those as well.

2 heads of broccoli ( I used 4 medium to large broccoli heads)
1/2 cup thinly sliced almonds, toasted ( I used 1 cup Dry Roasted sunflower kernels)
1/3 cup dried cranberries ( 2/3 cup)
1/2 small red onion, finely chopped (3/4 medium onion, minced)

Buttermilk Dressing
1/2 cup buttermilk, well-shaken (I used 1 cup whole milk, plus 2 tbsp white vinegar)
1/3 cup mayonnaise (I used 2/3 Cup)
2 tablespoons cider vinegar (I used the same, whoops)
1 tablespoon sugar ( I used the same)
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot (I didn't add more than the 3/4 from above)

Salt and Pepper to taste

First off I HATE doing dishes, yuck! So I always try to use as few as possible. So I made the dressing first.

Put your mayo in the bottom of a big bowl ( I used a cute tupperware one, so I could put it all in the fridge, and covered later).

In a pyrex measuring cup, measure your milk and vinegar (or buttermilk if you are way cooler than me) and let it set for a few minutes.

Then pour that into the bowl with the mayo, add the sugar and cider vinegar, salt and pepper and whisk until smooth.

Now take your broccoli and slice them off just where it starts to stem to each piece. Then I just cut off the floret cut it in half (or thirds depending how big it was), cut the stem in half and threw them into the dressing mixture. Repeat until you've cut all of that yummy goodness up (Did you know broccoli is a good source of calcium?). Broccoli is my favorite veggie. If you couldn't tell.

Cut up your onion, mince it. Throw it in.

Now measure out 1 Cup Sunflower Kernels (oh man this was a great substitute in my book)

Then 2/3 Cup Cranberries.

Now grab your salad fork and spoon and mix, making sure to coat everything.

Then I covered it and put it in the fridge for an hour so it was nice and cold.

This was all I could have wanted and more, sweet, tangy, fairly good for you, with tons of broccoli. Let me suggest trying it with the sunflower kernels, mmmm.

Have a great day and God Bless!

Homemade Bleu Cheese Dressing

Ingredients
4 oz Bleu Cheese Crumbles
1/2 Cup Mayo
1/2 Cup Sour Cream
3 oz Milk (+1 Tbsp Vinegar)
1 Tbsp Vinegar
1 tsp Garlic Powder
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 Squirt Mustard

Have you ever read the labels on Salad Dressing, really it's a bit ridiculous. And they are expensive! So I started to make my own, buying the dry seasonings for italian and ranch. Now, making our own bleu cheese.

So here is just how easy it is.

Dump in your bleu cheese to a tupperware container (so you can store it for about a week).

Measure out 3 oz of milk and add 1 Tbsp vinegar (to use as buttermilk).

Add Mayo, Sour Cream, Garlic Powder, Black Pepper, Mustard, Milk mixture and the rest of the Vinegar.
Then get out one of the whiskers from your hand mixer and stir it all up. Refrigerate for 10 min and serve! (I like mine chunky) if you like yours more smooth you can put it in a blender.

This turned out ABSOLUTELY GREAT! I loved it, it has a much better taste than the store bought stuff. It reminded me of the homemade dressing at where I used to work at a family owned italian restaurant! Hubby thought it could use some sugar, I liked the tang. So if you think you'd like yours a little sweeter I'd add 1 Tbsp of White Sugar.

Have a great day and God Bless!