Don't let "easy" make you think "quick". I had a couple of false-starts after finding this recipe on The Kitchen because I failed to notice the amount of chopping and the decent amount of braising time. I will say this, however: MAKE THIS.

My husband developed a taste for collard greens in Pensacola last summer and hasn't looked back. We've tried collards at every imaginable opportunity since then. This recipe has gotten the official stamp of approval. Even after Blue Smoke in Manhattan (I know. Why would there be good collard greens in Manhattan, but it's Blue Smoke!), if I may say so myself, we liked this recipe better.

I give partial credit to the recipe I started with (10 cloves garlic, wine, good broth and chili flakes? Yes, please.) and the rest to the Niman Ranch bacon I used the first time. Subsequently, I also tried this recipe with medium-slice deli ham and was very pleased with the results. (Trust me, though - try it first with the bacon.)

After classifying this dish as a Southern-style stir fry, I was also able to serve it as a main dish with a generous bowl of rice. In order to round out the meal, I improvised some Chili-Roasted Carrots with a sad little bag of baby carrots left in the crisper. They had a smoky sweetness that complemented the collards well and so, my friends, today you get two recipes for the price of one.

Braised Collard Greens (adapted from The Kitchen)

• 1 bunch collard greens (usually 1 1/2 - 2 pounds)
• 10 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 onion, minced
• 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• Red pepper flakes, to taste
• 1/4 pound bacon, ham or other smoked pork (try smoked turkey even if you don't eat pork...)
• 1/2 cup wine (any wine is fine - I always used some sort of leftover white wine)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• Salt and pepper, to taste

1. Cut and trim the tough stems away from the collard leaves. Stack the leaves, roll tightly and slice into ribbons. Wash the ribbons thoroughly and set aside to drain.
2. Cut the bacon (or other smoked meat) into 1-inch pieces.
3. Heat the olive oil in a large high-walled skillet or extremely wide pan over medium heat,  add red pepper flakes and bacon. Cook until bacon is getting crispy. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.
4. Add the onion and garlic to the skillet with bacon grease and turn the heat to low. Cook them slowly, stirring frequently, until soft and golden (about 10 minutes). Don't let them get too dark, althoug a nice caramelization is nice. 
5. Add greens and bacon to the skillet, stirring until wilted. Add wine and chicken broth and season with a little salt and pepper. Bring to a low simmer, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes over low. (This keeps the collards a bit al dente, if you will, so cook longer if you like them with a softer texture)
6. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with broth over rice. 

Chili-Roasted Carrots

• 1 bag baby carrots
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp chili powder
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper, to taste

1. Preheat oven (try the toaster oven - less energy use, cooler kitchen) to 450F.
2. Combine all ingredients in baking pan covered in foil (the foil will save you a huge headache later). Toss well to make sure carrots are completely coated.
3. Roast for 20-25 minutes.  Enjoy!

I rarely plan my baking ahead of time.  I do work muffins or bread or some treat into my weekly meal plans from time to time, but more often than not, things come up and big planned baking projects go by the wayside.  I do manage, however, to find quick and easy recipes that use exactly what I have in my pantry right about when I am getting the urge to bake.  These recipes, as you might imagine, are far more likely to make it into my day.

One such recipe, Apple-n-Carrot Nut Bread, popped up on fellow Brooklynite blog 30 Bucks a Week not too long ago.  Like the original, I happened to have an apple and some carrots in the crisper, begging for some noble use.  I did not have juice on hand, as the recipe requires, but I did have some vanilla soy milk.  I added about 2 tbsp maple syrup as well since I had the last of the bottle to use up and thought it could never hurt.

The modification I made which I might not recommend is using whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry flour.  My bread was very tasty and made for a week of hearty breakfasts, but it was definitely on the heavier, healthier tasting side.  Since I ate mine warmed up with a good dose of honey, it didn't really affect me much, but it's just something to consider. 

I also used 1 cup almond slivers and crushed walnuts because I had those around and I didn't have any dried fruit to throw in there.  This worked out well in my household, but feel free to play around with the nut/fruit add-ins for these.  The recipe is extremely flexible.

Apple and Carrot Nut Bread (adapted from 30 Bucks a Week)

• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (all-purpose is fine; regular whole wheat is okay, but heavy)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• sea salt
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup juice (apple or orange), milk or soy milk
• 1 grated apple
• 1 grated carrots (or about 6 baby carrots)
• 1/2 cup dried fruit, optional
• 1/2 cup nuts

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Mix together dry ingredients in large bowl.
3. Whisk egg, oil and juice together in seperate bowl.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry and mix until just combined.
5. Fold in grated apple, carrots, nuts and dried fruit.
6. Grease a loaf pan and coat lightly with flour.  Shake out excess.  (I used a silicone loaf pan and didn't need this step)
7. Pour batter into loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, until toothpick in center comes out clean.

Along with the fabulous pita breads (if I do say so myself) for last month's Daring Cooks Challenge, I served falafel and a couple of salads.  I have often thought about making falafel from scratch, but usually reverted to the mix in a box which really isn't bad and is certainly quick and easy.  The optional challenge recipes included one for falafel which used actual chick peas and all purpose flour instead of chick pea flour which can be harder for me to find.  So I figured I would go with it!

This recipe is nothing if not simple.  The very accessible list of ingredients goes into the food processor and then waits patiently in the refrigerator until you are ready to form it into balls or patties and fry or bake them.  I went the baking route, forming falafel balls slightly bigger than the suggested walnuts.  I baked them at 375F for 25 minutes, as suggested, in a convection oven which tends to cook things faster than your conventional oven. 

I will say that this turned out a soft-in-the-middle chick pea doughnut rather than the crispy bread-like falafel ball that I am generally accustomed to from a restaurant kitchen.  Next time I will flatten the balls a bit, or make them smaller, and perhaps cook for longer.  The result was tasty, but when I'd gotten so excited for a familiar taste, it was just different enough to make me re-think the process.

As for the Cucumber-Yogurt Salad (or Tzatziki), I again used From Tapas to Meze as my source.  In recipes that call for straining yogurt, I take a shortcut and use Greek yogurt.  They did the straining for you and the taste is fabulous.  (European-style yogurt at Trader Joe's is not Greek-style.  Be forewarned!) This was, perhaps, the biggest hit of our Mezze party.  This could be used for all manner of meals.

Falafel (Adapted from Joan Nathan and Epicurious.com)
Prep Time: 1 hour

• 1 cup drained and rinsed chickpeas
• 1/2 large onion (roughly chopped, about 1 cup)
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped OR use a couple pinches of dried parsley (.2 ounces/5 grams)
• 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro, chopped OR use a couple pinches of dried cilantro (.2 ounces/5 grams)
• 1 teaspoon table salt (.1 ounce/5 grams)
• 1 teaspoon dried hot red peppers (cayenne) (.1 ounce/2 grams)
• 4 whole garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 teaspoon cumin (.1 ounce/2 grams)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (.13 ounces/4 grams)
• 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour (1 ounce/24 grams) (you may need a bit extra)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 325F.
2. Place the drained, uncooked chickpeas and the onions in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Add the parsley, cilantro, salt, hot pepper, garlic, and cumin. Process until blended but not pureed. If you don’t have a food processor, then feel free to mash this up as smooth as possible by hand.
3. Sprinkle in the baking powder and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and pulse. You want to add enough bulgur or flour so that the dough forms a small ball and no longer sticks to your hands. Turn into a bowl and refrigerate, covered, until ready to bake, at least 1 hour.
4. Form the chickpea mixture into balls about the size of walnuts.
5. Bake until golden and firm, about 20 minutes. 

 Tzatziki or Cucumber-Yogurt Salad (adapted from From Tapas to Meze)

• 2 cups Greek yogurt, full or low fat (although 0% might be fine)
• Sea salt
• 1/2 medium cucumber, peeled and seeded
• 4 garlic cloves, minced (or mashed in mortar in pestle if you have the patience)
• 1 tbsp fresh dill, chopped
• 2 tsp fresh mint, chopped
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tbsp lemon juice

1. Grate the cucumber with a coarse grater to make about 1 cup.  Place over cheesecloth in strainer (or paper towel/tea towel).  Sprinkle lightly with salt and let drain 30 minutes.
2. Combine yogurt, cucumber, garlic, herbs and olive oil.  Mix well.  Add lemon juice and salt to taste.  Let sit 1 hour before using.
3. Serve with pita bread, vegetable crudite, gyros, souvlaki, all manner of chicken dishes or eat with a spoon!

In my ongoing endeavor to mix things up in the kitchen, I signed up for another monthly challenge.  The Tigress' Can Jam Food Blog Challenge! Each month, an ingredient will be posted and we have free reign to come up with interesting recipes to create and then can using a hot water bath canning method.  In general, the Tigress is committed to local, fresh foods which I, of course, am as well.  This seemed like a great opportunity to learn a new skill, make the most of local, fresh, in season foods (and not-so-local but in-season foods while we are in winter) and learn to be more self-sufficient. 

Alas, I started off by scouring the interwebs for citrus canning recipes.  There isn't a ton of variety out there and rather than get creative on the first month, I decided to play it safe.  The bulk of recipes available seem to be preserved lemons of a sort and marmalades.  The interesting part is the opportunity to play with the various kinds of citrus that are available this time of year - your basic run-of-the-mill citrus fruits and new-to-me varieties such as Cara Cara oranges, tangelos, pomelos and more.

I decided to go with a Meyer Lemon and Cara Cara Orange Marmalade that I found in the Washington Post (the same recipe is replicated on a few other sites as well I believe including a Pittsburgh paper whose link kept disappearing on me).  Trader Joe's, my chief supplier these days, happened to have both Meyer lemons and Cara Cara oranges this week which was perfect.

The first step was to wash and cut up the fruit.  First lesson learned: if you can avoid fruit with seeds, do.  The oranges were seedless, but the lemons had lots of seeds and seedlets that kept popping up everywhere.  Of course, fruit is supposed to have seeds and I'm generally against fruit that's engineered to be more convenient, so alas, there we are.

The pieces of fruit got chopped up in the food processor next, although the recipe calls for 1/4 inch pieces and I'm fairly sure my chopping job was more thorough.  This was fine with me since I'm not really a traditional marmalade girl, but I'll see the effects once the jam is tasted.  Next, the fruit bits are mixed with water and left at room temperature overnight. 

Things got much more exciting the next morning.  I heated the fruit mixture along with three cups of sugar until boiling and simmered away for about an hour.  The recipe calls for 45 minutes, but I was a little bit timid with the heat at first and it took awhile for the fruit to thicken up. 

While the fruit was cooking, the canning process got underway.  I have to say that this project made me feel more successful than I have in awhile and it was very fun in a nerdy homesteader sort of way.  I washed and dried three pint (16 ounce) glass mason jars and set them in very hot water using both my canning kettle (found here on Amazon) and a small dutch oven to sterilize them. 

Once the marmalade (so called as it had now finally thickened to something resembling marmalade) was ready, I used my sweet canning funnel (the 5-piece canning set available on Amazon had everything I needed and was such a great help - I get no money for that recommendation.  I'm just a happy customer.) to fill the jars.  As the recipe claimed, it makes just enough (with a small bit extra) for 6 8 ounce jars or 3 16 ounce jars.

Jam jars and dummy jars ready for processingIn order to make sure I was canning properly, I consulted both the directions to the canning kettle and my new bible, Putting Food By, which alerted me to the need to use dummy jars to fill out the rack in my kettle and protect the filled jars from underwater crashes.  I also followed their process for the Boiling Water Bath and the timing from their Classic Orange Marmalade.

The processing of the jars is actually the easiest part of the whole process.  Once the jars were filled and lids placed on tightly, I filled the rack (don't make my mistake and fill the rack outside the kettle - there was no disaster but apparently carrying jars in the rack is not a good idea) and submerged in near boiling water.  As the water reached a boil, I set the timer for 5 minutes.  And then, voila! My jars of marmalade were complete!

I haven't tried them yet as diving right in seemed to defeat the purpose of sealing them in jars that will keep for up to 3 years, and cooling them for 12-24 hours was suggested by the canning kettle instructions.  I assure you, though, that I will have a post coming when I take my first taste!  

The inspiration for this dish came from a recipe over at Serious Eats.  I'd been tossing this recipe around in my head ever since it hit my inbox (I find the Dinner Tonight section of Serious Eats to be invaluable both for inspiration and just really good recipes). The recipe is mostly meatless because it does involve a good dollop (my favorite measurement) of anchovy paste.  One could do with it.  I wouldn't.

In my special version, I warmed some olive oil, a healthy dollop (maybe 1 tbsp) of anchovy paste and a smashed garlic clove over medium to medium-high heat.  I added in some beautiful orange cauliflower, and let the anchovies and garlic get just fragrant and into a good sizzle. Add in about 1/4 cup water and cover for about 5 minutes, turning down the heat slightly. 

Once the cauliflower is tender, the magic begins.    Uncover and season with salt, pepper, and red chili flakes if you enjoy them.  Turn the heat up to medium high and let the water evaporate.  Here, you are instructed to not be afraid of the caramelization of the cauliflower.  I repeat, do not be afraid.  It is very much the key to the loveliness of this dish.

While the cauliflower finished up, I spread some panko bread crumbs on a baking sheet and mixed with sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper.  I covered in a good mist of olive oil and baked for about 5-7 minutes (I have a convection toaster oven so things like this go quickly. You might need more time). 

When the cauliflower was just about done, I added the juice of half of a lemon, toasted pine nuts, a bit more salt and pepper and hot al dente spaghetti.  I topped with bread crumbs and copious amounts of Pecorino Romano and devoured immediately.

I have to say that even though I tend to only write about recipes I enjoy, this really is maybe the best thing I've made.  Ever.  It was so satisfying and full of flavor.  I wouldn't change a thing!