Cooking with Collard Greens
The other day I made a huge mistake. As I was running around the grocery store like a headless chicken during lunch, what I thought was kale turned out to be “New England Collard Greens.” By the time I realized the tightly wrapped bunch with gigantic leaves wasn’t kale, I was already paying at checkout and was too lazy to switch. Yea it looked a bit funny but I figured non-organic kale is just bigger and less pretty. Rookie mistake.
I took it home and the bunch of greens haunted me every time I opened my fridge, mocking me as I had no idea what to do with them. When I think of collard greens, I think of bacon and butter and other southern grease that I have no desire to leap into after a day of work.
Finally, after getting sick of staring at it, I decided to throw it into my wok. Add a curry paste and two cups of water and simmer for about 25 minutes after the water reached boiling. I tried a taste of it after 10 minutes and unlike kale, it still tasted bitter and harsh; so I kept simmering away. After 25 minutes I added some cooked pasta shells and tofu cubes for another 10 minutes of simmering action.
The end result if you love curry ended up being delicious. I now have a healthy vegan lunch for 4 days. Here are the ingredients I used:
- 1/3 Box of Wholewheat pasta shells (you could use rice but I was craving me some shells)
- 1 Packet of Kitchens Of India Curry Paste with 2 cups of water
- Frank’s hot sauce because curry alone isn’t enough spice for me
- A giant bunch of collard greens
- One box of firm cubed tofu
And the best part? I learned that if I have the patience (35 minutes vs 10 minutes with kale) collard greens are really not that intimidating and can be quite delicious with a simmering sauce!.
Yum! And I love that you added more hot sauce, that’s so much like me! Collard greens always scream pepper sauce to me, it’s a southern thing I guess. 🙂
Yum! Sounds like a delicious mistake to me!