Mean Green

This post is compliments of Oregon Natural Foods.

I am a big fan of Good Eats. Watching the show has definitely gotten me to think outside of my normal range on food. I have even been willing to try foods that I would never have considered a few years ago.

Greens are one of those foods. I have a market share at the farmers market, which means that I have a certain amount of money available each week that I get to use. I will make another post about this at a future time, but the point is that I have lately been “forced” to get produce that I may not have otherwise gotten. Last week, I ended up with two bunches of chard and a bunch of kale. My plan was to cook the greens over very high heat until they wilted. I wanted to add some flavors that might stave off the reminder that I was eating greens. I was never a big fan of greens, even when I saw them sitting there looking edible every time I walked into a restaurant when I lived in Greece.

I cut out the center rib of all of the greens and then used my kitchen scissors to cut the leaves up into edible chunks. While I did that, I got my enamel Dutch oven out and put about a half cup of olive oil. I let it sit and heat while I cut the greens because you want the pan to be smoking hot.

As soon as I got the greens cut up, I shoved them all into the pot and put the lid on. It was a very tight fit, but greens cook down a LOT when you cook them over high heat, so I was determined that stuffing them in the pot would work. After a minute or so, I added some salt and some rice-wine vinegar. As they cooked down even more, I added even more salt and then what little bit of teriyaki sauce I had in my fridge (if I didn’t have that, I would have just put some brown sugar and some soy sauce in). For some protein, I put in the last bits of some corned beef that I had in the fridge.

After the greens totally wilted, I pulled them out and put them in a bowl. I was expecting to be chewing them and hating them all the way, but both Jared and I were surprised that they actually tasted quite fantastic. We cleaned our bowls without a problem.

I’ve even go some left over that I am going to cook some orzo into and then sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Operation Mean Green was a success. We can eat greens in this house now! It does help that Alton Brown did a show on it to get me to be brave!