We had this broccoli salad two months ago at a supper club dinner. I fell in love with it and asked for the recipe. Last night we had our very dear friends, Mark and Juli and their beautiful children over for dinner. I made the broccoli salad and it was a hit.
First before the recipe, I have to tell you of my mystery broccoli. Last fall I bought a few slips of cabbage for the fall garden. I planted them along with some peas and lettuce. We haven't eaten anything out of that piddly garden. The peas didn't produce as it got too cold and the lettuce looked funny when it matured. The cabbage only grew little leaves and did nothing. Late in January we had some warm days and my youngest came running in the house one day announcing that there was broccoli coming up in the garden. I went out and low and behold, the cabbage that I bought was really broccoli (come on, who can tell when they are so little)! There were nice little florets on it. I have been keeping an eye on it for the past month and it has been growing slowly. I thought for sure that we would lose it with some of our cold nights that dipped below freezing. But it has survived and yesterday I went out an harvested it. Boy did it taste great!
So here is the recipe:
Broccoli Salad 
Ingredients:
2 bunches chopped broccoli
1/4 cup of red onion, finely diced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
10 slices cooked bacon, crumbled (or about 1/3 cup of read bacon bits)
¼ cup white sugar
½ cup mayonnaise
1 Tbs. white wine vinegar
Combine above ingredients and refrigerate. The longer it is refrigerated, the more the flavors all meld together.
I cut all the little florets off and only use them for the salad. I don't use the stems and I make the florets kind of small like in the picture.
