A Southern Veggie Meal

Monday, my husband and I went out to dinner. I ordered a curried chicken salad sandwich, and it came with freshly made potato chips. I ate almost all of them. The next day, I suddenly craved fried foods all day. Coincidence? I think not.

I am trying to get back into the habit of having our meals be approximately 2/3 vegetables at dinner. I am normally very perfectionistic about many things in my life, but with this, I keep reminding myself that being on a path to a good place is better than trying to leap instantly to that place, failing, and giving up. For the same reason, when my hubby asked me if I wanted him to start calculating how long we are walking on our walks through the park that we take about every other day, I told him no. “Walking through the park at all is better than sitting at home thinking how I should be running three miles through the park,” I told him. “And if I get discouraged about not making big enough measurable strides, I’ll just quit doing it.” It’s a big divergence from my usual take on life–it’s being easier on myself–and I’m hoping it will help me. I want to feel nurtured by taking care of myself, not ordered and punished as I sometimes feel.

This was our meal last night: mixed whole grain pilaf and garlic tossed with black beans, vegetarian collard greens; African winter squash with a small amount of butter and brown sugar and lots of cinnamon; fried green tomatoes with feta cheese (pan-fried was the idea, though I put too much oil in the pan and they were closer to deep-fried); and rolls, though neither of us ate the rolls–we were too full from the rest!

I had held dinner until my husband got home from an event at 8 p.m.; we usually eat about 6 p.m., so we were too ravenous to try to get a particularly good photo of dinner. Those are salad plate in the photo, so it’s not as much food as it may appear to be.

Several friends and family members have told me lately they are surprised by how often I cook collard greens (one type of braising greens), as their experiences with collard greens have been entirely negative. I never liked collard greens–which are a Southern tradition–as a child, but I realized when I tried them a couple of years ago that they have grown on me. Plus, they are full of antioxidants, and they are a winter staple in Georgia produce. The trick, for me, has been figuring out a way to cook them that doesn’t involve loads of pork fat but still cuts the natural bitterness of the greens. (I realize some Southern cooks will tell you that you can’t make collards without pork fat, but I would like to live to see my grandchildren.)

Here is the recipe I’ve developed for collard greens. My husband liked it so much he didn’t realize it was the same food I’ve fed him several times before, just with some different seasoning. Ha.

Tasty Vegetarian Collard Greens

(Our particular batch had about five servings.)

1 large bunch fresh collard greens (they cook WAY down)–you could also use turnip greens or other braising greens

1 onion

2 T olive oil

1/2 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. Bragg’s amino acids (it’s unfermented soy sauce, a version I can eat–I’m pretty sure soy sauce would work fine)

1 T molasses

1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

1 bottle of dark beer

2-4 c. of vegetable broth

Clean the collard greens thoroughly; they take much more washing than you would expect. Any dirt you miss will be very gritty in the final product. Some people say to put them in a bowl of water and swish the dirt off, dump that water out, and then repeat that several times. I’m always surprised by how dirt clings to them so stubbornly. I honestly might have given up on making them (or at least would have relegated them to a weekend-only food) if we hadn’t been able to start getting pre-washed collard greens at our farmer’s market on Saturdays.

Chop your greens into smaller pieces.

Chop the onion.

Put the olive oil in the bottom of a very large, preferably non-stick pot. (I use our biggest pot, because the greens take up so much space before they are cooked.) Heat on medium-high heat until the oil is hot; then cook the onion pieces in the oil until they soften some. Turn the heat down to medium.

Toss in the chili powder, Bragg’s, Worcestershire sauce, and molasses, and stir around. Pour in the dark beer, and stir it all together. Stir the collard greens into the pot, and then add broth until the greens are just barely (or even mostly) covered. Turn the heat down to medium-low and let them simmer, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Note: Collard greens have to cook at least 30 minutes to be digestible. Undercooked greens are very tough to chew–like eating leaves, which I guess they actually are! Some people cook collard greens for hours–until they are really mushy–but I prefer to leave them more firm than that.\n

Most restaurants serve collard greens with vinegar added to them. I obviously can’t eat them that way. The other common accoutrement is hot pepper sauce, which we also don’t use, though I think Dan would like them with that.

Note: Collard greens have to cook at least 30 minutes to be digestible. Undercooked greens are very tough to chew–like eating leaves, which I guess they actually are! Some people cook collard greens for hours–until they are really mushy–but I prefer to leave them more firm than that.Most restaurants serve collard greens with vinegar added to them. I obviously can’t eat them that way. The other common accoutrement is hot pepper sauce, which we also don’t use, though I think Dan would like them with that.

The other truly Southern food on the menu was the fried green tomatoes, but I'm not posting that recipe here as--given the fat the tomatoes absorb--it's not a recipe I need to be making very often!