Today’s secret ingredient: Collard Greens.  Um… excuse me… but… WTF?

As you may recall, I got a box of produce yesterday.  In it was Collard Greens. I remember hearing about this stuff from my mother. All I remember was that it was something that ‘the old people’ ate. I’d never eaten it. I don’t recall ever seeing it cooked or eaten. In short, I had no idea what to do with it.

My friend, Suzanne, came to my rescue.  ”It’s good in soup” she said.  I figured that the leek in the produce box would be quite good in soup as well.  And I had leftover red wine in the fridge, and beans & tomato paste in the cupboard. Soup would work. I ducked out to Safeway and picked up some nice mushrooms and cilantro.

Back in the kitchen, I cleaned, thickly sliced and browned the mushrooms (don’t crowd them!). While they browned, I split the leek lengthwise (it was massive) sliced one half in about 1/8″ thick slices, and rinsed it well. Then I trimmed the stalks off the greens, washed & dried them.  I split each leave along the spine, and coarsely chopped them.

When the mushrooms were finished, I quickly sauteed the greens with a bit of salt and pepper.  Into a pot went a can of kidney beans, the mushrooms, and the greens.  I stirred.  I put the leek on to sauté, and added wine to the pot.  The pot simmered while the leek softened.  Then the leek went into the pot, and I topped it up with more wine and some water.  I also stirred in some tomato paste and a bit of salt & pepper.

I let this simmer for a while, before adding coarsely chopped cilantro. It simmered a bit more before being served & consumed.  I had a good picture, but it’s on the iMac that got packed up earlier this evening.

Oh. I should mention that the soup was good.

So, I’m very happy with my first collard greens experience, and am looking forward to opening future produce boxes and saying “WTF?”.