New Year’s Day Greens and Other Foods

GREENS

SOUTHERN SOUL FOOD

A New Year’s Day Tradition in the South

We eat Collard Greens every new year in the hopes that it will give us money all year long. 🙂

Black Eyed Peas are for LUCK!

And Cornbread, just because.

Stay Tuned as we add More Recipes in the Future

Happy New Year!

Julie and Gordon

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A dinner plate with two or three bowls are a must.

Otherwise, everything will run together and we’ll have a wet soppy delicious mess.

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Gordon in the Kitchen Ready to Make our Greens

These were some of the best greens we have ever made and I believe it was due to the diced ham, bacon fat, pearl onions, chopped tomato, Splenda brown sugar, and the vinegar’s we used. Normally, we have used fat back which in my opinion puts too much salt into the dish. Also, it is nearly impossible to cook all the fat off the pork, which when remains can be unappealing. The ingredient we added may not be traditional like the pearl onions and Honey/Turmeric Apple Cider Vinegar, but onions and Apple Cider Vinegar are, which are the slight twist of ingredients we like to incorporate into many of our recipes.

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Git Ta Eatin’!

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Ingredients:

1 pkg. Thick Cut Bacon – cooked and used as a garnish

2-3 Tbsp. Olive Oil

~1 Cup Onion – thinly sliced Red and Vidalia mixed

5 Garlic Cloves – thinly sliced then chopped

2-3 Tbsp. Bacon Fat – can be omitted, but provides great flavor

1 Cup Diced Ham

1 Tbsp. Dried Oregano

1/2 Tbsp. Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 Tbsp. Freshly Ground Pepper

Salt to taste – we used Hawaiian Sea Salt

~15 Pearl Onions – We used a mixture of Red, White and Yellow onions

1 Large Tomato – Chopped into large pieces

1 1/2 Bags Kale – thoroughly washed with large stems removed

1 1/2 Bags Collard Greens – thoroughly washed with large stems removed

1/2 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1/2 Cup Honey and Turmeric Apple Cider Vinegar – If you can’t find our exact brand/type, use another vinegar or just add more Apple Cider Vinegar.

~1/2 Cup Splenda Brown Sugar

1, 32 ounce, Organic Chicken Broth

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Here is the bacon we used which was good, but we found some of the slices to be of varying thicknesses. Julie bought this microwave safe pottery cup like device to cook our bacon in which works great. The bacon fat runs off the cooked bacon and falls into the center and outer saucer.

Place a paper towel over the bacon and cook it on high for about 10 to 14 min.

(Or, you can use whatever cooking method you prefer.)

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Add your olive oil to a large pot and turn to medium high heat.

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Here we used previously thinly sliced Red and Vidalia onions, so I only had to rough chop them and add them to the pot. Stir the onions into the oil then continue to occasionally stir them so they don’t burn, and cook evenly.

Slice your garlic thinly then…

chop the garlic.

Add the garlic to the pot when the onions have cooked and turned slightly translucent.

This process takes about 5 min.

Stir your garlic into the onions and continue to cook and stir the ingredients.

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Here, the bacon has cooked to our liking and in looking at the onion and garlic mixture, it seemed to need some oil so I chose to add the bacon fat. This will also provide a great amount of flavor to the dish.

Now, add the diced pork to the pot.

Then add your Oregano and Red Pepper Flakes to the pot…

and then your freshly ground black pepper, Hawaiian sea salt, and stir all the ingredients together well.

Now, add your peeled mixture of Pearl Onions to the pot.

Here, I felt the ingredients needed some more bacon fat.

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Slice the stem off the tomato, and roughly chop the tomato as shown.

Now, add them to the pot and mix all the ingredients together.

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Add 1/3 of your chopped Collard greens to the pot…

Then your chopped Kale.

Here we had room to add more greens, so we added more of each.

Let the greens cook for a few minutes then add your Apple Cider Vinegar’s to the pot as shown.

Now, add your Splenda Brown Sugar to the mixture.

Lastly, add your Chicken Broth to the pot, turn the heat down to medium, and carefully stir all the ingredients. This is done best by pulling the ingredients up from the bottom of the pot. As the greens cook down creating room, add the rest of the Collards and Kale. Taste the liquid or “Pot Liqueur” and adjust the seasons as needed. We added a touch more of each vinegar and some Red Pepper Flakes to the mixture.

Cook the greens mixture for about 1 hour or until the greens are mostly cooked to al dente like pasta, or having just a little bite to them. I am sure you and your guests will enjoy these greens as much as we did.

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Cornbread and Greens

Although I am not going to give a recipe for our Cornbread here, we do have a few listed on our website. Usually, we just follow the package directions for it. But, you can’t eat Greens without Cornbread. It would just be too wrong. 🙂

Greens Topped with Bacon, Cornbread, Macaroni and Cheese, and Black Eyed Peas

The Perfect New Year’s Day Foods

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Replacing the Carb Pasta with Healthier Pasta

This is something new that we’ve started doing. We will buy the healthier pastas made from Garbanzo Beans and Lintels, etc. and replace the regular pastas in our favorite boxed food items. For example, the Kraft Macaroni and Cheese above. We still use the cheese packets and just replace the pasta. I then bag the carb pasta up and give it to our children and they use it in pasta salads and so on.

So, why not just make our own cheese sauce and use the healthier pastas? We will, once we’ve used up the old pasta foods in our pantry. But for now….