Collard Greens with Bacon

A few years ago Tom Espinola taught me an old-time tune called "Skillet Good & Greasy:"

      Cornbread and beans

And them good ol' collard greens

Keep your skillet good & greasy all the time, time, time

Skillet good & greasy all the time

I suppose that could have been the inspiration for dinner tonight--though there were no beans, and it wasn't too greasy...

First time cooking collards...they were declared by rob to be "some of my favorite vegetable matter ever," so I guess that's a success! I'm sure the bacon helped. As usual, I browsed some collards recipes and figured out my own:

Chopped 2 slices of bacon and crisped them up. Then added garlic, some chopped garlic scapes and hot pepper flakes to the drippings for about a minute, then the half bunch of collards (tough ribs removed, and sliced). Sauteed them for about 10 minutes. They tasted a tad bitter, but I didn't want to cook them to death. Drizzled in a little bit of agave nectar to take the edge off, juice of half a lemon, and added back the crispy bacon bits. Perfect!

The other players for dinner were corn muffins (Jiffy) and parmesan-herb crusted tilapia (frozen from Safeway). We've been digging their various frozen crusted fish things--you just pop them in the oven. At $7-8 for two servings I don't get them all the time, but when you consider that the same thing in a restaurant would easily cost twice that for one serving, it ain't bad. And also, I suck at cooking fish from scratch.

Oh, but this blog is supposed to be about all the fresh CSA produce, not convenience foods. Yay collards! Even a yankee girl can cook 'em.