Broccoli, Bacon, and Cheddar Salad

Hi friends and a Happy Thanksgiving week to you! Even if you have a busy week, there’s something about the holiday spirit in the air that makes it more manageable (at least for me, anyway!).

I hope you all had a good weekend though! Ours ended up being busier than anticipated, but filled with friends and food, so I can’t complain. 🙂

Friday Night

Friday night was pretty low-key and I binged on Everybody Loves Raymond via Netflix while cooking dinner and a side dish for a Friendsgiving party we attended on Saturday. I don’t know about you, but I could watch sitcom reruns every day, especially when I’m busy cooking!

This is the second year I decided to make one of my mom’s recipes for Friendsgiving that is always a favorite – Broccoli, Bacon, and Cheddar Salad!

It’s such an easy dish that is always a crowd pleaser! I tripled the recipe for a group of about 20 (and there were no leftovers!).

Since I made this the night before and didn’t want the salad to get too soggy, I combined the salad ingredients first and threw them in the fridge; then I mixed up the dressing and kept that in a separate air-tight container in the fridge overnight. Lastly, I fried the bacon, (24 slices since I tripled the recipe – yum!), crumbled it, and also kept it in a separate container. Right before I left for the party, I mixed everything together and it was perfect.

This is a great side dish to play around with. For example, the original recipe calls for raisins, but I HATE raisins with all of my might. I can, however, stand craisins so I used them instead.

I included the full recipe at the bottom of this post, check it out, it’s a perfect party dish!

Saturday

We had an early start to Saturday morning because we were off to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 at 10am!

The best part? We went to the movie theater with reclining seats, so I was practically laying down the entire time. In terms of the movie itself? I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I thought the first two (The Hunger Games and Catching Fire) were the best in the series.

We followed up our movie with brunch at Burke & Wills, an Australian bistro on the Upper West Side. AJ went for the Eggs Benedict with crispy pork belly, and I opted for the Lox Benny with lox, poached eggs, grilled scallions, and capers.

They also have a DIY Bloody Mary’s on the menu, which was fun and we got creative with ordering our brunch cocktails.

After we ate, we had about an hour to go home and regroup before heading out to Queens for Friendsgiving!

I finished putting together my Broccoli Salad and I also had a Trader Joe’s box mix for a Pumpkin Cornbread so decided to whip up an easy batch of that as well. So good. I’m glad I decided to leave a few squares home for us to snack on this week. Trader Joe’s, you did it again.

Sunday

I realized I didn’t take any photos of our Sunday funday, but the morning began with church before heading into Hoboken for the afternoon. We visited with some more friends and finally met their adorable baby boy for the first time!

We also met up with AJ’s sister and her boyfriend for some football watching and wing eating. All 4 of us won NY Jets t-shirts, which was very exciting until we realized they were announcing practically everyone’s name at the bar. Even less exciting when I realized they were all XL.

That about wraps up our weekend, I’m definitely starting to get in the holiday spirit. And only one and a half work days left for this girl. 🙂

Finally, here’s the broccoli salad recipe I promised! Such a good recipe to have on hand if you’re in need of a last-minute Thanksgiving side this year!