Collards - A Southern Superfood

Along with pinto beans, cornbread and sweetea, collards are a staple food here in the south. We've been eating them all winter long fresh out of the garden. We don't grow them like most people do. Come to think of it we don't do much of anything like other people do. I guess that makes us contrarians or maybe just contrary like Mary Mary.

Anyway we grow our collards not in rows but close together in a wide bed like people grow mixed lettuce. We harvest the leaves small and tender rather than big and tough where you have to boil them for a long time with a chunk of fatback ( health-conscious people use smoked turkey legs now but fat back tastes better. I don't have anything against it you understand). I like to saute them with garlic, mushrooms, a little salt and pepper, some left over beans, mix in a little miso at the end and serve it over steamed brown rice or keenwaa (quinoa). It is delicious and nutritious. A friend of ours who has aids swears that eating collards and pinto beans have kept him alive for so long.

Our patch is starting to flower now so we cut them and parboiled them and bagged them up and froze them so we'll have collards to eat until the new crop of fresh greens are ready in a few weeks. We trimmed of the flower buds to cook for dinner. Like little baby broccolis. We are also having cornbread made with kefir, and collardkraut as a garnish for the beans. No sweetea though. Sugar is bad for you.

Could you have a more southern meal than that? I don't think so. Hi Joyce!