Eat Your Greens: Broccoli Slaw

Many of you who follow me on Instagram surely know that the past few months have been just a wee bit crazy for me.  At the beginning of August, we moved from our beloved Chicago to start a new adventure in Denver.  It's been great getting settled into a new home (it's a house! with a yard! and we had to buy a car!), but my job is still back in Chicago, so I've been splitting time between here and there.  With one foot in Denver and one foot in Chicago, grocery shopping and cooking anything even mildly interesting has sadly fallen to the bottom of our priority list.

But this past weekend, we were actually both home in Denver, we didn't have any visitors, and we actually had time to catch our breath.  And of course, all we wanted to do was cook.

Saturday night we just wanted comfort food - it was cold outside, and we snuggled up on the couch catching up on our huge DVR backlog while a yummy coq au vin was cooking in the oven.  Exactly what we needed.

Then Sunday night, we opted for grilling.  Chris brined two thick-cut bone-in pork chops, and then coated them in a sweet and smoky mesquite dry rub.  We grilled them up, and decided on crispy oven potatoes for a side.  Since the rub on the pork had a slightly bbq/southern flavor profile, I decided we needed something acidic to cut through all the fat and smokiness.

In came the most perfect and perfectly simple broccoli slaw.

Riffing off of an idea in my head combined with some input from various recipes I looked up for the purposes of dressing ratio, the result was crunchy, bright, acidic, and the perfect compliment to an awesome meal.  And best of all, it uses the entire head of broccoli, including the stalk.

I had a full bowl of it, and ate every last bite.

picture via Instagram at katiep_fwmp

Broccoli Slaw

1 head of broccoli (including stalk)
1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon celery salt
Dried cranberries
Sunflower seeds

Cut off the top florets from the broccoli, and chop them finely.  Transfer to bowl.

Grate the stalk of the broccoli on a box grater (the largest holes you have).  If you don't have a box grater, chop up the broccoli stalk into small matchsticks.  Add to bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the vinegar, mustard, sugar, salt, and celery salt.

Pour the dressing over the broccoli - be careful not to over-dress.  Add dried cranberries and sunflower seeds to your liking.