Broccoli Salad

I love a good cook out, or a barbeque as some call it. I have always enjoyed going to these functions and preparing dishes for them. However, the food sometimes becomes a bit mundane. Burgers, hot dogs, coleslaw, deviled eggs, potato salad, macaroni salad, baked beans, and the usual dessert. Recently, while feeling too lazy to make potato salad, I thought that broccoli salad would be the perfect dish to take to a dinner. I scoured the internet for good ideas and after combining and tweaking, this is what I have come up with. And it was aMaZiNg!

Here's what you need:

2 bunches of broccoli
1 container of cherry or grape tomatoes
1 red onion
8 oz. cheddar cheese
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 pound cooked (crispy) bacon
1 cup mayo
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 cup sugar
black pepper

Here's what you do:

Cut the broccoli into bite size pieces and cut the tomatoes in half. Put in a large serving bowl.

Then slice the onion into slivers and chop the bacon. Add those on top of the broccoli and tomato.

Next, add the golden raisins and the sunflower seeds.

Then take the block of cheese and cut it into very small cubes. You could probably use shredded cheese for this, but I love the way the little squares of cheese look in the salad.

Then mix all of these ingredients together.

Next, assemble the dressing. In a separate bowl, combine the mayo (you can substitute plain yogurt for the up to 1/2 the mayo if you want to cut the calories a bit) sugar, vinegar, and black pepper. Mix it well and then pour on top of the salad.

Finally, mix it all together!

This is really good if eaten immediately and it tastes even better the second day. Ours has never made it to the 3rd day, so I don't know how well it will keep beyond that.