Sesame Broccoli Salad

an easy going side for whatever you're grilling this weekend.

You know the classic broccoli salad with a mayo dressing and bits of bacon, raisins and sunflower seeds that you may have eaten at family functions as a kid? I love that salad! Truth be told I really love almost any mayo based salad. Well, no one needs another recipe for classic broccoli salad. You can google some great ones. But I decided to take it for a little spin with a sesame flavored dressing. There’s still mayonnaise, bacon and sunflower seeds but I added toasted sesame oil and seeds, some soy and a lot less sugar. I also VERY lightly steamed (1 minute 30 seconds to be exact) the broccoli because I prefer it to have the slightest bit of softness. I think it makes for a more pleasant salad, while maintaining its crunch and nutrition. We ate it this week with chicken thighs on the grill. A perfect warm weather, backyard dinner. The full recipe is at the bottom of this email, accessible to paid subscribers.

MiniMouths

This is one of those multi-purpose recipes that you’ve come to love here if you have littles like me. For my son, I left a few pieces of broccoli in the steamer just a big longer and gave him a little bowl of the dressing on the side. So same meal, no extra dishes, but just adapted a little for his liking. That’s the vibe these days with my cooking.

What I’m Loving This Week:

Melinda’s Hot Sauce: My husband collects hot sauce like some women collect clothing - tags still on, never used and three of basically the same style. And this week one of his favorite brands really made his day when they sent me a giant box of every one of their flavors. It was really cute to see him light up over a box of hot sauce. But in reality they are really delicious and I love that they come in squeeze bottles. 

Keepers- by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion: This is one of the cookbooks that I actually cook out of often. The recipes are TRUE family dinners. Real crave worthy stuff too. It came out a few years back but the food still holds up for me.  I remember when it came out, and I saw the cover, I thought the way the food stylist cut letters out of puff pastry was really clever. That stylist and I ended up becoming friends (another cool mom!) and then I went on to be the food stylist for the second book The Dinner Plan! Both are worth checking out. I may feature one of their recipes here one week.