Collard Greens Pesto

 What? Yes, you can pesto anything.  Normally when I make a salad pizza, I'll use an arugula pesto but this week I didn't have any left in the freezer, and I wasn't about to go and buy more greens when I had a bunch of collards, half a bunch of kale and a good amount of lettuce still sitting in the crisper.  And the collards were from the CSA almost 3 weeks ago!  I will say, that's the advantage of CSA/farmer's market produce, it's so generally so fresh that it lasts a long time in the fridge (especially if you clean and package it like this), unlike the bags and boxes of salad you get at the grocery store that seem to turn to slime after a few days. At any rate, I hadn't had a chance to cook the collards, but I had cleaned and chopped them as soon as I got them home (they fit in the fridge much better that way) so they were ready to be turned into my first attempt at collard pesto.  

Collard Pesto (Recipe adapted from Garden & Gun)

Makes about 12 ounces of pesto

• 4 cups chopped collard greens (a small bunch will give you this much)
  
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2/3 cup EVOO
• 2 oz grated parmesan cheese
• 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest
• 1 1/2 tbs lemon juice 
• 1/2 cup toasted pecan halves
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt (adjust to taste)
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

In a food processor, combine the pecans, garlic, ¼ cup of the oil, the cheese, lemon zest, and lemon juice and blend or pulse several times to combine. Add the greens and pulse a few times to get them started (you can use a spatula to push the greens down between pulses). Add salt and pepper Add the rest of the olive oil slowly through the feed tube while the food processor is running and process to the desired consistiency. Taste and adjust seasoning.  

This will keep several days in the refrigerator and also freezes well.

Here it is going on the pizza dough:

I use the parchment to help me slide the pizza onto the pizza stone, I bake the pizza for 5 minutes at 500°F, then remove the parchment and bake for 5 more minutes. 

The finished product - I drizzled the lettuce with about a tsp of olive oil and lemon juice and grated a bit of parm on it:

 Full salad pizza recipe and process here. Overall collard pesto was a success! 

Greens Tacos

I've made collard greens tacos before, using this recipe from Serious Eats.  With two weeks worth of collards sitting in fridge, I needed to do something.  Forgetting I'd already made tacos with greens before, I searched and found almost the identical recipe at Rick Bayless' web site, which also comes along with a little video for "taco Tuesday" showing Rick making the recipe.  You can use any kind of greens in the recipe, the only thing that will vary is the cooking time for the greens.  I needed to cook the collards for about 25-30 minutes to get them to the tenderness I like, but you do you.

Collard Green Taco Filling

Ingredients

• 1 large onion (I used a vidalia), halved through the root and sliced thinly crosswise
• 1 lb clean, chopped collard greens (yield from two bunches - last week's was a little bigger than this weeks)
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp red chile flakes
• 3/4 cup chicken broth, vegetable broth or water (I used chicken broth)
• salt and pepper to taste

Procedure

Heat olive oil over medium heat in 5-qt non-stick dutch oven. Add onion, a sprinkle of salt and saute for about 20 minutes until caramelized (you may need to reduce the heat the heat to low).  Add chopped garlic and chile flakes to pan, and stir around for about 30 sec (until you can smell the garlic).  Increase heat to medium high, add 3/4 cup of broth, and the greens.  Let the greens wilt down, and when the broth comes to a simmer, reduce heat to low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally until the greens are done to your liking (about 30 minutes for collards).  Remove lid and let most of the remaining liquid evaporate.

To serve, place a scoop of greens into a warmed corn tortilla (I warm mine over a gas flame) sprinkle with queso fresco.  Add salsa if you like, the Serious Eats recipe linked above has a recipe for a chipotle salsa that's pretty easy.  I also like to mix the greens with scrambled eggs for a breakfast taco.

Some pics!

onions

onions cooked down, adding the garlic and chile flakes

adding the greens

all cooked

Collard greens in tacos?

Yes, you can put anything in a taco.  Tacos with greens apparently aren't all that uncommon, though it's not something I've ever seen in a restaurant.  Last year I made some breakfast tacos with beet greens and egg, and they were pretty good.  Week before last I had some folks over for tacos and end-of-curriculum celebration, and I wanted to have a vegetarian taco available along with the beef and chicken, and also, I needed to use up some of the greens from the week 3 CSA box - along with all the lettuce, there was a bunch of collards.  I found this recipe for Braised Greens Tacos on Serious Eats, and decided to give it a try.  I used a Vidalia onion in place of the red onion, and blistered the cherry tomatoes for the salsa under the broiler rather than a frying pan.  I used water instead of chicken or veggie broth for the braise (I wanted to keep it vegan, and I didn't have veggie broth).  I found that I needed about 15 minutes of braising to get the collards to a tenderness I liked.  Surprisingly tasty!  Also good with scrambled eggs in a tortilla. No pics of an actual taco, but here is the filling in the pan:

Blackeyed Pea Posole with Pork and Collard Greens

This is one of my favorite recipes for collard greens.  It's a great, hearty soup that uses lots of greens.  This is from Cooking Light (RIP) and I make a few substitutions.

 As printed:

• 1 poblano pepper (I sub a can of roasted green chiles -that is, unless there is a poblano in the CSA box)
• 3/4 lb boneless pork shoulder (also called country style ribs) cut into 1-1/2 inch chunks (I usually try to use 1 lb of bone in)
• 3 cups fat free, low sodium chicken broth (I usually use 2 cans of chicken broth)
• 4 cups loosely packed bagged, prewashed, chopped collard greens (OBVS I subbed collard greens from the farm)
• 1 cup chopped red onion (ooh, I had one of those from the farm, also a yellow onion)
• 1 cup chopped tomatillos
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro (if you hate cilantro, I bet you could leave this out)
• 2 tsp finely chopped jalepeño pepper (I used chopped Thai chiles from the CSA box)
• 1/2 tsp oregano (preferably Mexican)
• 2 garlic cloves chopped (I have SO MUCH GARLIC from the farm right now).
• 1 15 oz can of black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
• salt
• pepper

If you're using a poblano, roast in according to the directions.  Otherwise just get going w/ a can of chopped green chiles is just fine!

Heat a 5qt dutch oven over medium heat.  Add 1-2 tsp olive oil.  Add  pork, and cook for 4-8 minutes until browned.

Add 1 cup of chicken broth to the pan, and stir to scrape up browned bits.

Stir in remaining 2 cups broth,  canned chiles, greens, and next six ingredients (through garlic).  Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 40 min or until pork is tender.  Stir in peas, salt and pepper, simmer 5 minutes until heated through.

This freezes well.  Also, once you've got the pork browned and deglazed the pan with broth, you can just chop and dump stuff in the pan.  I bet you could do this in a crockpot for 4-6 hours or so on high (until the pork was tender), then add the peas and heat through.

A few pics:
Browning the pork:

I had at least half a red onion left over from a previous CSA as well a yellow onion...

No poblano in the CSA - and these are easy and nice - just drain them!

Throw in the chopped collard greens:

 Bring to a boil, cover and simmer 40 min, add the drained and rinsed blackeyed peas and it dinnertime!