Friday, April 7

Greens

I grew up in South Texas under the watchful eye of my Dad's mom our Granny, it was great and something that I think I took foregranted. Granny was a wonderful woman who loved us. We lived in Houston till I was 10, and that's when we made the pilgrimage to live in Alvin. Alvin was 45 mins. outside of Houston and nothing but a country town. Sometimes we would to eat Sunday dinners with Granny when we lived in Houston, but when we made that moved to Alvin we always ate with Granny. Granny, a quarter mexican, fed us well, with all the country fixens coupled with some tasty Mexican dishes. News Years Day was a special time that we got the extend the celebration to dinner. That is you could always count on Granny to have fixed black eyed peas and collard greens. These two represented luck (black eyed peas) and money (collard greens) in the new year. Thus my version of collards are in homage of the memories of my Granny and southern cooked dinners that I miss now. I love you Granny.


  1. Take 1 ham bone with ham still stuck to the bone and put it in a large pot of water. Bring the water to a rolling boil and let it boil till the bone sheds all the meat. Turn down the heat and and more water as it boils down. The idea is to get the flavor from the meat and bone to season the greens. This should take awhile. (3 or four hours on low heat) In the end you should have any where from 2 cups to 3 cups of ham water.
  2. Take the collard greens and separate the leaves (if fresh) . Now rinse each leaf individually under cold running water. After you rinse the collard greens thoroughly, stack several leaves on top of each other. Roll these leaves together. Then slice the leaves into thin strips using a cutting board and large knife. Rolling them together speeds up the process as you are slicing through several leaves at once.
  3. Next, add your collard greens to the pot. Since this is a lot of collards, you will need to add them until the pot is full. Then allow them to wilt as they cook - then add more. Cover and cook on a low simmer till you feel the tenderness is right. Stir every once and awhile to distribute the pork taste evenly.
  4. Don't go seasoning happy with these, because the ham bone will do all of it.
  5. Enjoy with an RC Cola and Bar-B-Q. I like to use the vinegar from a bottle of peppers in vinegar, to crank mine up afterwards.

Tuesday, April 4

Squares



Pin Hole @ 5 sec.