New Adventures in the Land of Food

By nature, when it comes trying new foods or new preparations for old food I am fairly undaunted. Since making the decision to not eat meat or in the broader form, anything with a face, my world and tastebuds have opened up. Outside of anything that I deem as too gross for human consuptions I am quite ready to broaden my horizons. I follow a couple vegetarian blogs to get new ideas and I love to go to the farmers market to see what is fresh and available that I might not have tried before.

I recently found a recipe for Collards I decided to try. I have never really fixed any kind of greens. The kids grandma used to make swiss chard but I don't remember eating it. I do add kale on occasion to soup. On Saturday Allison and I headed to the Scottsdale Farmers Market for collard greens. Not only did we find collards but picked up a couple other greens to throw in for good measure.

As is sometimes happens, as I was putting the ingredients for the recipe together to cook I discovered I didn't have everything the recipe called for so I made a few adjustments. First, I didn't have any vegetable broth so I just used water. I think the vegetable broth would have been better. I didn't have maple syrup so I used brown sugar. It seemed to work okay but will try it again with the maple syrup. Put in less cayanne and added garlic. I added collard greens, kale and swiss chard to finish it off. Everything else in the recipe I followed as directed. I started it cooking in the crockpot before I went to church and when I came home the house smelled so inviting. It cooked for about 2 hours and was perfect. Since I had left it there were a couple leaves that stuck and were charred on the side of the pot. Next time I'll watch and stir occasionally.

Even addng 1/3 of the cayanne pepper it was still plenty spicey for me. The combo of sweet and spicy was splendid. After scooping it up we topped each bowl with grated parmesan cheese and served it with slices of Dubliner cheese and bread. As a special treat we had received as a gift a jar of homemade Christmas Jam which is always yummy but was especially good on the bread after taking a bite that was particularly fiery.

This recipe proved to be delectable and scrumptious. I believe I'll be making this again very soon. Yum Yum