vegan cooking

when you hear “collard greens,” i bet the first thing that comes to mind is the traditional southern side of cooked-to-death bitter green lifeless mush that’s been boiled with a smoked ham hock for hours. grossss. the scent of collards always makes my atlanta-born boyfriend salivate, but it makes me dry heave. i guess it’s a southern thing. collard greens are a pretty ancient member of the cabbage family - they sort of look prehistoric, don’t they? they’re such nutritional powerhouses that i couldn’t resist trying to dress them up a little for my own purposes. Simply Vegan, a great book, has a recipe for collards and tomatoes - but i was disappointed. it was sort of bland. so after a little tinkering, i came up with this, and now i make it all the time. the southern man was actually a big fan of this recipe - he even said he liked it almost as much as regular collards. wow.

1 bunch collard greens (look for full, dark leaves without wilting or yellowing)
3 large ripe tomatoes OR 1 can diced tomatoes (any kind - try to go for no salt added. muir glen makes some fire-roasted diced tomatoes that are fantastic in this dish)
1 can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
5-10 leaves fresh basil
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp oregano
4-6 cloves garlic
1/2 medium onion
4 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 tbs vinegar (any kind - balsamic, apple cider, etc. i use sherry vinegar because i have it around.)
Bragg’s Liquid Aminos
Nutritional Yeast

to prepare the collards, give them a good rinse and then carefully remove the stalk. you can rip it out, but cutting it is a lot easier. don’t worry, you don’t lose too many nutrients here, but you do take out a lot of the bitterness. that’s a good thing! besides, you couldn’t digest that much cellulose unless you were a cow on Beano.

chop the collards into bite-size (think a piece of romaine in a salad) pieces, soak and rinse well. make sure you dry them thoroughly.

dice the onions and mince the garlic, and saute in the olive oil over medium heat. when sweated, add basil, spices, and collards and let cook until the greens begin to wilt slightly. it may seem like a lot at first, but it’ll cook down considerably.

when the collards have wilted (you may want to add more olive oil at this point), add the tomatoes and garbanzos. you’ll want the tomatoes to cook just until their skins begin to pucker. stir often to get the garbanzos heated throughout.

and that’s it! serve warm, heavily doused in Bragg’s Liquid Aminos and sprinkled with nutritional yeast. anything crunchy is good on this, too - roasted garlic crumbles, dehydrated veggies, veggie bacon bits, etc. shown here with cheesy garlic bread.

this makes great leftovers and is a very unexpected side without the garbanzos, but the addition of the beans makes it a great meal. enjoy!