A Better Bag of Groceries

Incredible Vegetables: Collard Greens

Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 07:17 AM

See my grocery bag up there – yes there, in that Polaroid-looking photo – with all the greens sticking out of it?  We arranged that little photo-shoot back in October.  It was all quite low-key.  My neighbor, who does some freelance children’s photography, was kind enough to come on over and shoot what would become the picture for A Better Bag of Groceries.  For the shoot, I ran into my local supermarket and blindly grabbed a bunch of vegetables with green, leafy tops to stick in the grocery bag.  When all was said and done, I was left with a bunch of unfamiliar vegetables with which I had little cooking experience.  One of those was a bunch of collard greens.

What to do with my collard greens…

I soon found myself on Foodbuzz, hunting down recipes.  I came across one titled, “Low-Fat Collards recipe.”  Hmmmm.  Sounded good to me.  So I tried it out.  And, oh my…..how I now LOVE collard greens!  And they get a perfect NuVal score of 100!

This week, I decided to make collard greens again.  While waiting to teach my Pilates class the other night, I was chatting with a couple of my students and I mentioned that I had been cooking collard greens.  The conversation went like this:

My Student:  What are collard greens?

Me:  You know the part of the Produce Section where they have all sorts of vegetables that you never buy – you know, carrots with green tops on them, whole beets, escarole?  Just go there.  You’ll find them.

2 lbs collard greens

1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup turkey ham, diced (I just used lean deli ham that I had in my fridge)

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1/2 Tablespoon butter

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon sea salt (I used Kosher)

cracked black pepper

In a 3 quart saucepan over medium high heat, heat the olive oil just until the scent of the oil starts to bloom.  (Yes, that is what the recipe says!)

Add the butter and allow to melt in the oil

Add the turkey ham and saute for about 3 minutes or until you start to get those little brown bits on the bottom of the pan.

Add the onion and stir with the ham, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.

Saute for about 2 minutes.

Add half of the collard greens and allow to cook down some, about 1 minute or so.

Add the last of the collard greens and stir until the greens, onions and ham are combined.

Cook over medium high heat for about 2 minutes.

Add 1 1/2 cups water, salt and pepper and stir.  Allow to come to a boil over medium heat.

Reduce temperature to low and simmer for 30 minutes, adjusting heat to maintain a constant simmer but not let it boil.

Serve at leisure.

Now, you must remember that I am a New England born & bred collard greens virgin.  I was impressed by this recipe – my husband too, but what do we know?  And my 4 year old ate them! 

But the true test was not my 4 1/2 year old (who will eat anything with a little salt and/or ham in it).  No, the true test was my colleague, Laura.

Here’s Laura with her grandson Ethan:

Laura, who is a Director of Customer Management for NuVal, lives and works in North Carolina.  She is a true Southern gal.  I think that there are even some beauty pageants in her past history!  She is prim and proper, always courteous and hospitable, and she has a lovely Southern accent.   Laura makes the trek up to the NuVal office in Boston about once a month or so, and when she does, I will often bring her something home-cooked or some fresh vegetables.  Laura likes to eat nutritiously and I know how hard it is when you are staying in a hotel.  So, I brought her some of these collard greens.  And she gave them a good ole Southern thumbs up!

One of my goals for 2010 is to keep cooking through that unfamiliar corner of the Produce department.  You know, the one with all the leafy greens.  What should I make next?

Question of the Day

What vegetable are you curious about?

Posted by: Melissa 7 comments

Posted in: Incredible Vegetables

Tags: collard greens