Wednesday, January 02, 2008

Collard Greens

Here is a picture of our collard greens a bit earlier in the year. I finally decided to start harvesting them this past week. I picked an entire grocery bag full of collards. I brought them in the house and soaked them in cold water to remove any dirt. I then took the time to cut the stem out and chop the leaves. This took forever. I was now down to a 5 quart mixing bowl full of collard greens. I then put them on the stove to cook. When it was all said and done, we ended up with a cereal bowl of collard greens to grace our table. I gave Michael and myself a generous spoonful and I gave Jacob a smaller spoonful. He is our only child that likes things like collards. Shortly after the prayer was said, I announced that the chickens could be moved over the collard green bed. I didn't think the collards would be good enough to mess with again. After all, it was a lot of work to get such a small helping of greens. Then I took a bite. I quickly announced that nobody would be moving the chickens into the collards. These greens were the best I had ever eaten in my life. Jacob and Michael both agreed that these were by far the best. I might have even said that they were my favorite vegetable in the entire garden. Lets just say, they were WELL worth the trouble. I have several more meals worth of collards in the garden, but next time I will cook at least 2 grocery store bags full! Maybe then we can all have seconds!

Collard Greens

In an iron skillet, use about 3 Tablespoons bacon grease. Add fresh collards that have stem removed and chopped into bite size pieces. Add about a quart of water, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon sugar. Cook for about 45 minutes on low to medium heat. Add more liquid if necessary during the cooking process. Spoon collards out of liquid into serving bowl. Serve collards with vinegar if desired.

grace and peace,

julie

1 comment:

The Hill so Green said...

I only remove the stem up to the leaf. We don't eat pork so I cook the greens using a large pot starting with a shallow layer of salted water with some olive oil and maybe some lemon juice. I wash the greens then with kitchen scissors I trim the steams and cut the leaves down in size in a large hand full at a time. I fill the pot and continue to add more greens as they cook down. A large bag will cook down to a good mess of greens.