Southern Cooking Classic: Collard Greens

Collard Greens are definitely a rare menu item outside the South, but they don't have to be in your diet!  What can be wrong with bacon and greens--two of my favorite foods!

The traditional recipes use a smoked ham hock, but since my husband and I had recently taken a butchering class offered by the Pig Wizard, we have cuts from half a pasture-rasied pig in our freezer (it actually fit in our refrigerator freezer!).  A few portions went home with the Pig Wizard to cure, since he has the set-up.  After sampling some dried, cured meats he brought along, ours will be well worth the wait!

I cannot speak highly enough of the incredible opportunity it was to better connect with our food and play a role in the process of bringing it to our plate.  The 8-hour class was an eye-opening experience to see inside our food and how to parse it into cuts.  There were no cleavers and we only used the saw a couple of times--with finesse of the knife and careful work, you can render elegant cuts.  This was respectful butchering and in its craftsmanship and skill, an art form.

We devoured the carnitas we made from the butt or pork shoulder--omg is fresh, quality pork sweet and delicious!  We cut out the shoulder blade that was embedded in our carnitas meat and reserved it for our collards, leaving some meat attached.  This is a great use for the bone if you buy a bone-in pork shoulder or pork butt, which is often the case in some markets.

To supplement the pork bone, which we felt was a little sparse, we added a pound of bacon.  Yes, a full pound.  And it was awesome.

The collard greens are a hearty green you can find around the chard and kale.  They are related to broccoli and cabbage, so they have similar benefits such as vitamins A, C, and K, and calcium.  These veggies are also potent cancer fighters, as a 2006 study published in Cancer Research indicates:

Epidemiologic evidence suggests that high dietary intake of Brassica vegetables, such as broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts, protects against tumorigenesis in multiple organs. 3,3'-Diindolylmethane, one of the active products derived from Brassica vegetables, is a promising antitumor agent. 

Collard Greens recipes involve boiling the collards, but don't leave that liquid behind when you serve them!  Don't throw out the baby OR the bathwater in this case!  That liquid, called "pot liquor" or "potlikker," is an extremely nutritious broth with the vitamins leached from the cooked greens.  The loss of nutrients is one reason why I never boil or blanche my veggies, except in a soup--I try to keep as much of the nutrients in the food as possible and if they are released during cooking, I make sure to use that liquid.  In the case of pot liquor, it is rich and delicious--you don't want to waste a drop!

My husband was the driver in this recipe--and boy am I lucky to feast on this incredible creation of his!  He scoured the recipes out there and mashed together the ingredients we like best.  I took the revered role as sous chef and taster.  He is a great cook, and cooking together is so much fun, even in our small kitchen.  We always manage to wind up laughing and having a good time.  Just sharing the time together is infinitely precious.

So without further ado, here is our recipe:

Collard Greens and Bacon
Healthy, hearty greens paired with bacon--this is a heavenly match you'll soon devour!
Prep Time: 15min. or less
Cooking Time: 2hrs, give or take

Ingredients:

• 3+ big bunches of collard greens
• uncooked ham bone from a bone-in roast, with some meat attached (great for using the bone from pork butt/shoulder leftover when making carnitas!) 
• 1lb nitrate-free bacon, diced
• garlic powder
• salt
• pepper
• pinch of red pepper flakes
• water
• a large stock pot

Method:


The first step is the stock: toss in your ham bone, diced bacon, and all the seasonings--you can wing the amount based on how much you are making at once.  We used about 2T garlic, 20 pepper grinds, 2t salt, and a pinch of red pepper flakes, initially, then we added more to taste once the collards were about done.  Add 3-4 quarts of water and bring the liquid to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for an hour.

Once the hour is up and your house smells amazing, you can add the collards.  Here's how to prepare them: wash them twice to remove any sediment (we've heard that they are notoriously dirty and need a good rinsing), then strip the leafy greens from the woodier parts of the stem using one hand to hold the stem and the other to make a fist around the stem and pull up to the top of the leaf, stripping the leafy green from its stem (I use this method for making my kale chips with dinosaur kale and it saves SO much time!).  Stack the leaves and cut the collards into wide strips.  You can stop there and add the strips to the pot or add another slice to break apart long tangles.  Many of ours after cooking became a large dice--think stamp-sized--but there were still some noodley strips that were more difficult to fit on a spoon.

Add all the collards to the pot--you really can't go wrong with adding a ton--we wish we added more to ours because they were delicious!  Stir to help get them all in the liquid and simmer the pot for another hour--less if you want more chewy leaves and at least an hour if you want them meltable.  Stir every now and then to break apart tangles and feast on that delicious aroma up close.  Taste and add any more seasonings as desired.  They're done once you reach your desired tenderness of the greens.  Serve in a bowl as a soup alongside your main meat or add the cooked meat right in.  This as a chicken soup is amazing!

This dish is absolutely, lip-smacking delicious--which is definitely saying something considering it's a healthy, green vegetable!  Hope you enjoy it too!

Broiled Bacon-Fat Smeared Broccolini

Can you think of a more delicious sounding veggie?  Imagine bacony decadence coupled with crisp-tender, sweet broccolini that's ready in 15min or less.  Is your mouth watering yet?

Let's take a brief interlude on the What To Drink series of posts to go back to my roots and post a recipe.  I know, I know, it's been awhile.  Why?  I have been trying out some N=1 experiments (more on those later) and cheating intermittently while vacationing and entertaining out of town guests.  That is life and now more than ever I can definitely understand why food is a drug.  It can benefit your entire being when it's on, and carry one hell of a punch when it's not.  When I am normally so dialed in, faltering is felt.  Big time.  And I am not just talking about nausea/stomach ailments or loss of energy after carb-heavy meals.  I am talking about outright depression.  Food is a drug, for good or for worse.

So when I am dialed in, what is life like?  I have made it as simple as possible so it is easy to follow.  I don't have to plan or put in much effort at all.  When I am on the diet, I am really just eating meat and vegetables.  I am trying the low-carb thing, so I'm choosing low-carbohydrate vegetables instead of fruit and starches.  You would think the reduction in possibilities makes like harder, but it's actually just the opposite.  With too many choices, I'm overwhelmed and don't always make the best choices.  With fewer, I can focus more on the food itself and find myself sticking to newfound favorite staples that aren't much fuss at all.  There's hardly a "recipe" to speak of.  Life can't be simpler.  Or more delicious!  Seriously, I crave this fuel for the taste, satisfaction, high energy, and high spirits that follow.

Here's the formula that has totally revolutionized and reinvigorated my diet:

1. Pick a meat (like poultry, pork, beef, or fish) and choose a cut you have on hand or buy it from the store (remember to focus on grass-fed/pasture-raised/wild-caught/organic meats).
2. Pick a veggie.  For ease, make it a quick-cooking (like a broiler/grill crisp-able) or no-cook veggie (like salad, assorted vegetable sticks, or carrots). 
3. Prepare the meat and quick-cooking veggie the old fashioned way by grill, broiler, or hot pan with little more than salt, pepper, and sometimes a cooking fat if needed/desired.
4. Add a fat like bacon or guacamole/avocado if you didn't use plenty of cooking fat.  

So it boils down to: meat, vegetable, and fat.  That is ALL I have to think about to have a meal.  Simple.  And I can taste and enjoy every single component because I'm keeping it simple.  Naked so to speak.  I can also use this strategy to buy already cooked components from the grocery store, like mackerel canned in olive oil tossed over packaged salad greens with the juice of half a lemon or a splash of vinegar (here's the basic recipe: Salad from the Sea--scroll down to the bottom to find it).  Simple and satisfying!

Here are more examples of my 30-minute or less dinners:

• Meat: Grass-fed beef burgers, salted, peppered, and cooked in grass-fed, raw butter (Organic Pastures for the win!) topped with guacamole and/or bacon and/or leftover melted butter from cooking (Note: these could just as easily be grilled, but we don't have a grill)
• Veggie: carrots to dip in guacamole (perfect substitute for chips, especially if you cut them in half so they are more dip-grab-able) or use lettuce leaves for burger tacos

• Meat: Grass-fed steak (ribeye or NY are my favs), salted, peppered, and seared in a hot pan/grilled
• Veggie: Broiled Bacon Fat-Smeared Broccolini (recipe to follow!)

• Meat: Rotisserie pasture-raised chicken (store bought)
• Veggie: salad greens alone (like crunchy snack-able/dip-able romaine hearts) or with a simple oil + citrus acid dressing, or raw, cut veggies and guacamole

• Meat: Farm fresh eggs and chicken-apple sausage and/or bacon
• Veggie: Wilted baby spinach sauteed in bacon fat or butter cooked in the same pan as the eggs and sausage

• Meat: Toaster-oven broiled wild-caught fish (just cooking fat smear, salt, and pepper)
• Veggie: arugula salad with a simple oil + citrus acid dressing

Lunches are even easier using precooked roasted turkey breast or leftovers from dinners (always make more than you need!) and cut veggies or a salad.  Add some nuts, avocado/guacamole, cooking fat, bacon, or skin for some fat.

Breakfasts are the staple of which I NEVER tire: farm fresh eggs and chicken-apple sausage cooked in raw, grass-fed butter or bacon fat, and perhaps a green veggie to wilt in the pan like spinach.  

Pretty simple!  Just make sure you have plenty of meat, plenty of veggie, and plenty of healthy fat (monounsaturated and saturated).  Thinking of your meals in terms of just these three things makes life SO much easier!  Cooking is no longer a chore and neither is meal planning!

What Is Broccolini?

Broccolini is sweet broccoli.  It has thin, slender stems still attached to the small florets.  The sweetest and most tender are those with the thinnest stalks, as opposed to those with thicker, woodier stems.  Broccolini isn't really baby broccoli, as I once thought; instead, it's a cross between Chinese broccoli and regular broccoli.  Surprisingly, this new variety was just introduced in the US in 1998!  Broccolini is definitely kid-friendly since it is a finger food (even when cooked) and naturally sweeter than regular broccoli.  Like most veggies, it's most nutritious when raw and only needs quick cooking.  It's rich in vitamins A and C as well as fiber, potassium, and iron.  I imagine many of the benefits of standard broccoli still apply.  See more at The World's Healthiest Foods.

According to the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, cruciferous or Brassica vegetables include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, asparagus, Brussels sprouts, kale, bok choy, radishes, arugula and some other greens.  There are some promising links between eating these veggies and preventing cancer.  While high intake seems protective of cancer, make sure you aren't iodine deficient.  There is a possibility of hypothyroidism if you eat a lot of cruciferous vegetables and you are iodine deficient.  Find out more about iodine deficiency at this information page also from the Linus Pauling Institute.  

Okay, enough with how good the damned veggie is!  I mean, it's a vegetable, so it's nutritiousness is a no-brainer, right?

On to the recipe!

Broiled Bacon-Smeared Broccolini
All the porky deliciousness of bacon plus good-for-you, sweet, crisp-tender broccolini?  Need I say more?
Cooking Time: 15min or less start to finish, prep and all

Ingredients:
Bacon fat (reserved from cooking bacon--can store for quite some time sealed and refrigerated or on the counter-top.  What?  You don't have any on hand?  What a great excuse to make more bacon!)
one bunch of broccolini per diner (you want those with the slenderest stems instead of thick and woody)
salt
pepper

Method:

This is so simple it is hardly even a recipe.  Let's see how few breaths it takes to recite: Take broccolini, cut off end of stems, rinse, shake to dry, place on broiler-resistant baking sheet (like stainless steel--NOT non-stick unless you like the high-heat-released toxins), drizzle on the cooled, liquid bacon fat or lather on the solid-yet-soft bacon fat (there is no such thing as "too much"), salt, pepper, arrange with thickest stems placed in the middle of the sheet, and whack in the broiler (I use the LOW setting and the top rack) for 3-5 minutes.  Check for a color change to a more bright, emerald green.  If your broccolini were especially slender, they might be done right now.  Make sure you don't let them get floppy (unless you like them overcooked).  If you want more cooking, flip them, put them back in, and wait 3-5 more minutes (varies broiler to broiler), then test for desired doneness.  I like mine still very crisp, but not hard-crunchable.  The stalks shouldn't be floppy, but should still yield when you try to cut them.  Remove from that hot sheet once done, serve hot or at room temperature (cold is a little weird with the solidified fat clinging to them), and sop up leftover bacon fat with the florets.  Um... yum!

NOTE: since the broiler and grill are roughly equivalent, you could probably quickly grill these using the same recipe (but beware of fat flare-ups).  Perhaps you want to dry cook them and then drizzle on the melted bacon fat after.  Yum!

Also, these last a few days when sealed and placed in the refrigerator.  I just reheat them briefly if desired and they still remain crisp and delicious.  So make more and have some leftovers for more easy meals!


Now you have more tools in your nutritional toolbox to revolutionize your diet too!  Let me know how it goes!


Steamed Broccolini