Mess 'o Greens

Garden Cleanup Day - I don't really get too worked up about keeping the garden beds cleaned up.  I mean, take a look at the oak trees around here.  There are always leaves and what have you in the beds.  But, I deemed it time to clean up from the winter freezes and the critter's ravaging the garden.   Rolled along on my garden cart; one bucket for the compost bin; and another bucket for the greens pot.  Anything that would not make the cut for fresh salad as well as turnip and radish greens that needed to be thinned.

But I have never tasted meat, nor cabbage, nor corn, nor beans, nor fluid food as half as sweet as that first mess of greens.
James T. Cotton Noe (1912)

Then the critters showed up and decimated 5 Mustard Green plants and 3 Collard Green plants.

My harvest bucket in the background is over half full of salvaged greens as well.

That is some mess of greens!

Cooked down - yes that is one standard 9" vegetable bowl serving bowl of greens.  From that huge double arm load.

Univ of Illinois - Watch Your Garden Grow has this to say about growing and harvesting Mustard.

Can't wait till we can have this with our own 'real' field peas.  But, this was certainly good.



Guess who was uber happy?  Though he did mention not enough pork meat.

Tradition -  in my family at least -  southern greens are cooked with salt pork or slab bacon.  I opted for a bit more health consciousness.  Just a bit.  No turkey today, though I have used turkey legs in the past.  Today, I used a 2" Pork loin roast; bone-in.  Using my Calphalon 8qt Pasta Multipot, I heated up a good size slug of peanut oil then braised the heck out of the piece of pork.  Until the outside was good a crispy with lots of crispy bits of flavor left on the bottom.  Pulled the meat out and turned down the heat; trimmed a couple fatty edge pieces, dropped them back into the pot with one cup of water and 2 TBSP butter and a chunk-ed up sweet onion.  While that was heating up, I wrapped the pork in aluminum foil to continue cooking.

* The bigger the pot the easier the cooking.  Last time my MIL made collard greens I think she used my lobster pot.  I opted for ease of clean up.  That was probably a mistake.

I did this batch of greens the hard way.  I used kitchen scissors.  Way too slow.  Next time I'll get out the jumbo cutting board and roller cutter, like a pizza wheel or rotary cutter.  Cut to 1" strips.  It goes much faster to get a big ole pile of leafs, roll them up; then slice.  I don't like them sliced or diced too small.  Losses too much flavor in my opinion.

I did the collards first; heavier.  Collards take longer to wilt than mustard greens.  Just keep adding new batches of greens and turning.  I added the ribs, that is the way my grandmother always did it and the ribs were always my favorite part.  Keep turning as you add more greens.  Turn and turn.  Once they are all in the pot and have wilted, add another 2 TBSP butter, cover and simmer on low for 10 minutes.  Serve with vinegar pepper sauce.

This actually turned out to be much more than we needed.   And the thought of freezing cooked greens is not appealing.  Well, maybe to add to stock for vegetable soup.

I am going to blanche and freeze some single meal size (uncooked) portions.  That was suppose to be today but the round to it broke.

I've got to dash and fix our third meal with these greens.  Though we have snacked on them a bunch.

Oh, and my southern relatives?  Especially those in South Georgia, they are amongst the original Urban Homesteaders (not copyrighted).  Though they probably didn't think of themselves as Urban Homesteaders, they were just trying to eat.  My grandparents moved into the small house in the small town in the late 1940's.  Dirt had more value than my maternal grandfolks.  It was the first and only house they owed.  It was a 3 room house with an outhouse.  In the city limits.  Everybody had a kitchen garden.  If you wanted to eat, you had your kitchen garden, you hunted and fished the Okefenokee Swamp and you foraged.  Though I don't recall them calling it foraging either, just 'go git'.  And they canned, and preserved - 'put up'. 

By the time I showed up on the scene in the 1960's, they had a bit more money but they still did the Urban Homesteadering (not copyrighted) thing.  Heck, they still had the outhouse - functional.  Though by then they did have an indoor head.

I don't recall when the Dervaes moved to Pasadena and starting feeding themselves off  land in the city limits.  I know it was much later than the 1940's.  And as I recall the story, they too were just trying to eat.  So where they heck do they get off and sending out cease & desist orders?

I don't consider myself an Urban Homesteader, heck - if needs be - we can buy food at the grocer.  At least for now.  What does the future hold?  I don't really know, it worries me, the risks of produce from the grocer worries me.  I haven't eaten store bought eggs or milk for ages - it worries my digestion.  If our city allowed chickens I would have a few laying hens.  If our idiot state allowed the sale of raw milk; I would hunt down a dairy farm to buy milk.  Hmm, wonder if I can justify pygmy goats as pets?

In the mean time, I'll keep growing my garden and growing my knowledge.  Learning more about how to prepare and put up the harvest.  Increasing the diversity in our diet, eating local  - and reading Daphne's Dandelions and friends Harvest Monday reports!