RECIPE: Southern Style Collards

My dad usually plants a winter garden of collards and other greens but this year he has been really busy with the RBC working on the homes damaged by the floods a couple of months ago. Collards from your own garden taste so much better than those purchased at the store. I hope to be able to plant some next fall in our little garden I'm planning. In the meantime, Kroger had their collards $1.99 for a bundle. I like to put kale in my collards too since dad usually plants kale among other greens. So I also picked up a small bundle of kale. Everyone has their own way of making collards, here's how I do it:

To prep the collards & kale, strip the leaves from the stems :


Rolls the leaves into a log and then slice them into 1" slices:


Fill a sink with cold water and clean the greens, allowing any dirt or debris to fall to the bottom of the sink, the greens will float:


In my cookbook, I wrote, "add the collards in batches until they wilt down to avoid a mess"...wish I would listen to myself!


Southern Style Collards
3 bunches of collards
4 cups chicken broth
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (more if you like it spicy)
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons honey
1 Tablespoon vinegar (apple cider, white distilled, red wine, whatever you have)

Clean and strip the leaves from the stems. Stack the leaves together and roll up and then slice in 1" slices. Heat oil in large pot, add onion and garlic, stir until lightly browned. Add red pepper flakes, chicken broth and collards. Add sugar, nutmeg and honey; simmer for two hours and then add vinegar and serve.


Yummy!

Tonight I used turkey stock I made from a turkey we had a few weeks ago. I also added some chicken bouillon to add a little more flavor to the stock. I used white wine vinegar since that's what I had on hand. Only thing I wish I had was a pone of cornbread...mmmm - yummy pot-liquor!

What do you use to flavor your collards?

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