So now you all have coleslaw marinating in your fridge, right? 😉
Before we continue, though, let’s remind ourselves of the feast meal our family enjoyed the other day…
Yesterday we gave you our creamy coleslaw recipe, so today we’re moving on to the other side [of the plate] to talk about collard greens!
We suppose now is as good a time as any to explain to you the inspiration behind this meal. There’s a restaurant near our house called Memphis Fire Barbecue Company. Our brothers and father discovered it sometime while we were away at school. We came home one weekend and they were all excited about this great new place and couldn’t wait for us to try it! We were a little skeptical because the whole “meat, meat and more meat” thing isn’t really our scene- not that we don’t like meat, just not in such large quantities, you know? But when we got home late from work and really didn’t feel like cooking anything we caved and agreed to order-in some Memphis.
So now you’re probably expecting us to say that we were blown away and couldn’t believe that we had ever thought we wouldn’t like it, aren’t you? The truth is, we weren’t. Like we said, large amounts of meat really aren’t our thing. We liked it well enough, but we weren’t head-over-heals for it or anything. Our brothers, of course, were in heaven!
The funny thing is, though, is that while the pulled pork was definitely the star of the show, our brothers couldn’t stop raving about the collard greens! We had to agree with them, they were pretty tasty! Of course, they were cooked in a fairly large amount of butter, and there were salty bacon bits in them, so they weren’t exactly the healthiest greens we’ve ever eaten.
But we knew that they could easily be healthified (yup-that’s a word) and still taste great! How did we do it? First off, we decreased the butter (confession: we had no butter left over in the house so we used margarine) and used low-sodium vegetable stock to help with the wilting process and give the greens a little more flavour. Also, since we don’t really like bacon all that much (we know, we know, we’re crazy) we left it out and instead used some liquid smoke to achieve that coveted smokey flavour that bacon imparts on the collard greens. Toss in some garlic et voila! You have healthy, tasty collard greens!
Collard Greens
Prep Time: 10 min
Cook Time: 20 min
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients:
1 large bunch of collard greens
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp butter (or margarine)
1/2 c. low-sodium vegetable stock
1/2 tsp liquid smoke
Pinch of salt
Directions:
Melt butter or margarine in a large pan over medium heat.
Chop the collard greens into thick strips. Add the chopped greens and garlic to the pan and cook, stirring often, until slightly wilted (about 5 minutes). Add the stock and liquid smoke and continue to cook until the greens are wilted and most of the liquid has evaporated, about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and season with a dash of salt.
~twosaucysisters
What restaurants does your family love? Have you ever had collard greens before?
twosaucysisters 