Unlike most southerners, I am not too fond of "greens." I remember when I was small my uncle Jake coming into the house carrying a paper grocery sack full of collards and asking Mom to cook them for him.
Mom was always a good sport about it. She recalls those days now every time we have greens of any kind. She grew up eating turnip greens, but Mamaw didn't cook collards.
I hated the smell of cooking collards. I would always spend a lot of time playing outside on those days when Mom cooked collards.
I Googled collard green recipes and found Paula Deen's collards but they don't involve vinegar. Strangely enough, I found the Guy Fieri recipe called Southern Collard Greens is closer to what I imagine Mother cooked. (I fled, remember, so I don't know what she put in there except I know about vinegar.)
On New Year's Day, a few weeks ago, I had spinach for my dinner, among other things. I like fresh spinach, sauteed in some bacon fat with onions, with some apple cider vinegar added. YUM.
Took me years before I would eat spinach.
When I was a kid, the only green leafy thing I'd eat was lettuce. I ate a LOT of lettuce. That's probably why I don't much care for it now, not iceberg anyway. I love buttery Boston Bibb lettuce in our good olive oil & lime juice dressing.
I've been hearing a lot about kale, and so the other day at Kroger I got a big bunch of curly kale. It's certainly attractive.
I had heard a lot of noise about Kale Chips being so yummy. So I found a recipe and made it. Michael and I ate most of what I fixed, but I need to work on that recipe.
I washed the kale, dried it in my salad spinner, and put it in a bag with some olive oil, salt, and garlic powder. I put it on a cookie sheet in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes. It certainly crisped up nicely, most of it.
The problem was that not all the leaves had the oil/seasoning mixture on them. I had put everything in a big plastic bag and I thought I had shaken it around enough, but clearly not.
Kale has tons of nutrients in it.
It's a great healthy recipe, though, so I will make it again. I just have to figure out the best way to season it and cook it for our family.
If you have a favorite way to cook kale, drop me an email or leave a comment and tell me about it.
