Life Behind the Curve

I have a lot of fond memories from college, but most are not typical of today’s college student. I transferred to Rutgers as a junior to be close to Scoot, who also had just transferred to accept a football scholarship. (He became my fiancée about ten minutes after I landed in New Jersey. He’s a smart man.) Instead of hanging out with our peers, we spent a considerable amount of time with faculty and staff with whom we had become friendly. The group of them that we spent the most time with included a number of Africans. We’d occasionally go to a local Ethiopian restaurant and, once, were invited over to one of their homes for an African meal. It was during this meal that I was introduced to peanut butter collard greens. For this week’s experiment, I decided to attempt to recreate them.     

- EmmieJ    

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Like I normally do, I turned to Chef Google and, wouldn’t you know it, the first recipe I found was for African-inspired collard greens in peanut sauce. I headed off to the store to buy two bunches of greens. Collard greens are low in calories and rich in vitamins B, C and beta carotene. A recent study by researchers at UC Berkeley also found that a chemical common in greens like collards exhibits anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-cancer properties.    

Fresh collard greens

Like other greens, collards cook down so two bunches ended up being just right for about four moderately sized servings.    

When I went to pull up the recipe, the link was broken. Luckily, I have a near photographic memory and could recall most of what I was supposed to do. The one thing I was unsure of was the cooking time. Here is how I made them:    

• Rinse greens. Cut off end of stems (I cut just above those white ties to make things easy). Chop greens into thin strips.
• Boil 1 – 2 cups of water in a large pot. Add greens. Cover. Steam for 5 – 10 minutes.
• Drain greens, reserving cooking liquid into a bowl. (Warning: The liquid looks like pee. You’re welcome.) Return greens to pot.
• In a separate bowl, add 1/2 cup peanut butter. (I used mass-marketed reduced fat peanut butter. If you have the chance, I highly recommend the most natural peanut butter you can get, as it’ll keep the flavor more true to those of African cooking, since there won’t be as much added sugar.)
• Mix cooking liquid into the peanut butter, a small amount at a time, until it’s the consistency of sour cream or yogurt.

Creating the peanut sauce

• Once it reaches the desired consistency, add the peanut sauce into the greens, stirring to coat.
• Add a bit of freshly ground sea salt to taste.
• Turn heat on to low and cook uncovered for another 10 – 15 minutes. (My greens ended up being somewhat al dente. If you’re used to southern style greens that have been simmering for a long time on the stove, you may want to increase the cooking time.)

Collard greens in peanut sauce

 I love to have thematic meals but in all honesty, dinner last night was just a mishmash of random stuff that we had in our fridge. The greens were a hit with me and Scoot. The boys did not like them. Even D, who loves the canned collard greens that we’ll buy on occasion, did not like them. Like he went over to the trashcan and spit them out. Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Guess we’ll just have to ship the boys off somewhere so Scoot and I can enjoy them again.