This next recipe amuses me. It’s from Lynne Sawicki of Sawicki’s Meat Seafood & More in Decatur and it calls for 1 part bacon to 3 parts raw collard greens. Now we all know that both bacon and collards cook down – but the proportion seems to favor the bacon, and I guess that’s appropriate for the owner of a meat shop.
Last January, Bon Appetit featured a recipe for Potato and Kale Cakes. I’ve adapted this to use collard greens (and/or the tops of your kohlrabi and your turnip greens). It makes a beautiful entrée and all the parts can be made ahead of time, leaving just the cakes to be sautéed when you’re ready for dinner. Try sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes. Ought to be just as good.
An adaptation of a recipe from the Los Angeles Times, this dinner goes together quickly.
One of the ways many of us preserve a bounty of basil is by making pesto. How about adapting that idea for the collard greens in this week’s box so you can enjoy them for another few weeks? Stir it into pasta, add some to a batch of field peas, serve it as bruschetta at your next party.
It seems this is an idea that’s been around for a while. Here’s one version I found adapted from a recipe originally in Gourmet magazine in 2004. Now you can adapt it to suit your taste.
One more idea from Jason Paolini. You see raw kale salad recipes by the dozens. Why not something similar with collards? You could make this with ham, speck or prosciutto, or just serve the salad without any pork at all.
And here’s one more recipe for greens – a frittata. Bake it in a pie plate and cut into wedges for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner. Bake it in a square pan and cut into bite size pieces for a pre-dinner nibble. It’s good at room temperature, hot or cold, and accommodates whatever greens you want to put into it. The recipe will also accommodate whatever cheese you have on hand. It’s hard to go wrong here. I’ve included a method for steaming greens in the microwave. I prefer to do that instead of heating up the kitchen with lots of boiling water. But you should use whatever method you prefer.
And then there’s the arrival of that other green – collards. I was reminded that someone once demonstrated dolmades – grape leaf rolls – where collards stood in for the grape leaves. Makes perfect sense. And given the small bunches of collards we’re going to get right now, that idea might be just the way to use up the dozen or so leaves that are in our boxes.
I also ran into lots of raw food recipes using collard greens to wrap “spring rolls”. Here’s one from goneraw.com. Adjust the vegetables, the amounts and the sauce ingredients to suit your household. You can substitute peanut butter for the almond butter if you’re not a stickler for a raw food diet.
This recipe should appeal to those who love their collards cooked until very, very tender.
he following very chef-y recipe is from Linton Hopkins, he of Restaurant Eugene/Holeman & Finch fame. It was published in the Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook. It’s a little time consuming, but what a beautiful indulgence that will use up all the greens in the box this week. It’s a nice reminder of how delicious a little browned butter can be.
This recipe, from Jason Hill of Wisteria, was published in Atlanta Cooks at Home.