Occasionally I’ll get in these moods where I’m not only tired of the same food rotation but I also want to step out of my comfort zone a little & try new things. I’ve wanted to try my hand at collard greens for awhile now, but some of the recipes I considered seemed like it would take virtually all night to make the durn things!
So I put it off. I am the Great Procrastinator after all. But when I went to the grocery store there was a bag of just the greens marked down to $1.49 so I snatched ’em up. I found a fairly simple sounding recipe & decided we’d have steak & gravy and mashed potatoes as well; a true southern treat.
I was also in an adventurous mood, and missing the first ingredient of the collard green’s recipe (olive oil, I only had vegetable) but other recipe had used what I had so I went with it. I was also out of another ingredient, bacon. However–I had tons of delicious Easter ham left over so I chopped it up & used it. Made my own chicken broth (which clearly makes me feel special!), threw everything else together, let them cook. Towards the end I noticed some Bac-O’s in the cabinet so I dumped those in too. I mean, it did call for bacon. Also threw a couple splashes of hot sauce in there. The recipe I used didn’t call for it but my cooking idol (Paula Deen, y’all) does so I thought “What the hay?”
I regret not taking a picture. I had no idea I’d get a notion to write a blog about (of all things) collard greens. But here it is. Picture less. And it was my first time ever!! I found them to be just what I was looking for…something tasty & different & easy to make. My husband didn’t care for them because he does not enjoy “mushy lettuce type stuff”. My oldest & middle children liked them in general but did say they were too spicy. (Too many splashes I guess.) My youngest didn’t try them (despite the “try new things one time” rule in our home) but then again he doesn’t try much most days unless it’s spaghetti related. I will be adding this to my recipe box & making it again someday…even if I’m the only one scarfing it down. 😉
Here’s the recipe I tweaked if you’d like your own collard green adventure.
live. laugh. love. 