Author Notes: Collard Greens are a nutrient dense and often overlooked leafy green. Most southerners cook them a long time- resulting in a drab green leaf. These collards are bright green and cook in about 5-10 min (after the initial prep). Collards can take a while to prep, especially if you get whole leaves (or a whole head), so this recipe allows you to do the time-consuming prep work a day or so ahead of time. Currently my favorite way to eat these is for Breakfast with eggs and smashed potatoes. The inspiration for these came from Small B&B in Pittsboro, NC. They served them for dinner and again for breakfast. This is my idea of how they cooked them- I’m not sure since I never saw their recipe. —Jay
Serves: as many as you would like
Ingredients
-
Organic Collards (as much as desired)
-
Bacon
-
Sea Salt
Directions
-
To Prep:
Take your collard leaves and rinse them. Cut or rip the stems out of the collard leaves. Roughly chop the leaves. Rinse leaves again. Take a large pot and fill it a third of the way with water. Bring to a boil. Set up a large bowl filled with ice water and keep it near the stove. Fill the pot about half way with the greens. Stir them in with a slotted spoon. The leaves should wilt and all be submerged under the water. Blanch for about 90 seconds. Remove the leaves with the slotted spoon and place immediately in the ice water. This will stop them from cooking any more. Repeat this process until you have cooked all the collards. Then drain the greens. You can now place the greens in a zip lock or other storage containers. You can also fry up the bacon at this point. Cook up as much as you desire- save the grease and dice the bacon into small pieces. -
To Prepare:
about 1 Tbl of Bacon Grease per cup of blanched greens
Heat the bacon grease in a frying pan on medium heat till melted. Add the Collards. Sautee for 5-10 min till hot. Salt to taste. Sprinkle with bacon pieces. Enjoy!