Monday, October 17, 2011

Get 'Em Greens

Greens: collards, usually, sometimes mustard, or kale, always good for you, but too often overcooked. Here's a quick way to make tasty, crowd pleasing greens.

2 lbs of greens. (Collards, Mustard Greens or Kale. You choose. You can also mix them together.) 1/2 teaspoon vinegar
1 tablespoon of olive oil
8-12 strips of bacon. (Substitute for turkey bacon if you like)
4 cloves of garlic
1 small red onion
1/4 cup chopped parsely
salt and pepper to taste

Step 1
Chop greens into slim strips. Wash throughly. (Chopping the greens into slim pieces will help them cook faster and prevent you from overcooking them.) Set aside.

Step 2
In a large pan, brown bacon until golden. When cooked, chop bacon into pieces, set aside and reserve pan drippings.

Step 3
In stockpot or Wok, add olive oil and bacon drippings. Coarsely chop garlic and onions and sautee until translucent.

Step 4
Add greens. Allow to cook down until wilted, then add vinegar, salt and pepper.
Add bacon and toss with greens. Allow greens to sit for a couple minutes then transfer to a plate.
(This process should take about 10-15minutes)

These greens will be a bit chewy--that's the point. They should also be bright green in some spots, if they're a dark, brownish color overall, they've been overcooked, but that's ok. They'll still be good.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Whole wheat spaghetti with mustard greens and bacon

I LOVE bacon.
I like greens.
I like spaghetti.
I like garlic.
I like Parmesean cheese.
And, it turns out, I like all of these things together.

1 bunch of mustard greens (collard greens would work too)
1 package of whole wheat, thin spaghetti (Barilla makes a nice one)
1 package of bacon (Thick cut works nicely too.)
4 cloves of garlic
1/4 stick of unsalted butter
1 bowl of Nicole's Greens (see previous recipe)
1/2 cup of grated Parmesean cheese*
olive oil
kosher salt and pepper to taste

Step 1
Turn your oven on to 350.
On a large cookie sheet, place the bacon in strips vertically.
Place bacon into the oven, and let crisp until golden brown, about 20 minutes. If you burn a couple, no problem, but try not to burn all of them. Once done, remove the bacon from the oven and drain on a paper towel. Reserve a little bit of the pan drippings in a separate bowl.
Once cooled, coarsely chop the bacon and set aside.

Meanwhile, place a pot of lightly salted water on the stovetop. Add a little olive oil.
Once the water's boiling, add the pasta. (I don't break up my pasta, I let the heat wilt it until it's all in the pot.) Give it a couple twirls, 8 minutes or so. Reserve some of the water in a seperate bowl. Let the pasta drain. Toss it with the bacon drippings so it doesn't stick together.

Step 2
In the pot that you jump dumped the water out of, pour some olive oil and let it heat up.
Smash the four garlic cloves and mince lightly. Add to the pot, sauteeing until golden. Do not burn the garlic or you'll have that roasted garlic flavor and while usually good, you don't want that for this dish. Once the garlic is golden, add the butter, stirring until disolved. Then turn the fire off under the pot.

Step 3
Add the spaghetti to the pot, and half a cup of the reserved pasta water to coat the spaghetti.. Transfer the spaghetti to a large mixing bowl. Add the bacon, Nicole's greens, the grated parmesean and toss!

Step 4
Enjoy with some wine. And the satisfaction that this took you almost no time.

*If you have the nice, expensive, flaky, fresh Parmesean, by all means, use it in this recipe. (It really does taste good--airy, sensual...) If you shop at Costco like me, use the Kraft one and call it a day.