Sweet & Sour Collards w/ Cornbread

Sweet & Sour Collards via Rachael Ray

I love to try new recipes.  If I make something that we love, I hold on to the recipe--if I don't love it, I don't make it again.  Over the years, my collection has grown--I used to never make the same thing twice...now, I have a binder of favorites that I look forward to making once or twice that season.  But the bulk of our recipes comes from new stuff.

I clipped this tiny little square out of an "Everyday with Rachael Ray" magazine at one point.  My husband loves greens, and I'm a little on the fence about them.  They're "not my favorite," as we would say at our house.  But I am a sucker for dishes that include vinegar, so I'm excited about trying these out!  

I plan to serve my greens with some easy peasy Jiffy Cornbread from the mix...40 cents from Aldi + the inexpensive greens = another idea for your rice & beans kinda weeks!

Veggie Plate

I spent my childhood in Indiana, Ohio, & upstate New York.  Although my family moved to the south (oops, sorry, I mean The South) when I was in Jr High, I didn't have my first "veggie plate" at a meat-n-three establishment until my freshman year at Auburn University.  (Veggies to Go, for all you Plainsmen out there.  And that was where I learned banana pudding was a "veggie.")  ;)

If we want to learn to love vegetables, and we want to learn how to love cooking vegetables, we've got to cook & eat vegetables.  Genius, I know.

via

Veggie Plate night is our creative outlet.  Think about veggies you love--do you have any?  What are your favorite ways to make them?  What are new ways you could make them?  Sauteed?  Roasted?  Braised?  Steamed?  Casseroled?  (Yeah, I just used "casseroled" as a verb.  Auburn made a Southern girl out of me!)  Try to keep your method fairly healthy.  (Green Bean Casserole with loads of cream of processed food soup & butter & fried anything is probably not the way to go...but wait--surely there's a healthier version??)

Ok, now think of veggies you hate or don't care for...I wonder if there's any way you could make them into something you'd like.  Don't like eggplant...but what about baba ganoush?  What about eggplants on Pioneer Woman's pizza?  Don't like artichokes...but what about a healthier spinach artichoke dip?  What about artichokes on pizza?  (Ok, I like pizza.)  Technically, I used to hate greens.  But I just needed to find the right recipe and try them enough times...

Pick just one veggie to gussy up for the week, and steam two others.  Then pick a whole grain.  The end.

I got my Collard Greens recipe from none other than The Miss Southern Cook herself...Paula Deen.  My whole grain is the intriguing-sounding Quick Whole Wheat & Molasses Bread from Mark Bittman.