My favorite way to cook Greens.

Part of my (forever in progress) Bachelor's degree focuses on nutrition, specifically nutrition education. With my food knowledge and nutrition knowledge combined, I want to show people that healthy food can taste awesome. Okay, yes, half of my posts are desserts, and yes, about half of those aren't even "healthified" desserts, but that doesn't mean healthy food can't be awesome too. I also strongly believe that if you are eating lots of awesome healthy foods, you for sure deserve to indulge in the sweet side of things sometimes too.

I digress. Vegetables can taste awesome. I don't like very many kinds of vegetables raw. I don't know a lot of people who like very many kinds of vegetables raw. So, we cook them. Far too often we think of vegetables as an afterthought. Boil some frozen broccoli.  Look! We have our vegetable for dinner. That isn't very tasty, and you deserve better. I think a lot of people don't like vegetables because we don't take time to prepare them nicely. You don't just boil a chicken breast and serve it for dinner, do you? Most people wouldn't like chicken very much if that was all we did to it, so let's cook our veggies better.

Here is a good place to start: Greens, as in dark leafy. Some of these veggies make some pretty tasty salads, but if you are looking to cook them, I've got a perfect way.

Ingredients:
8 cups dark leafy greens- torn into about 2 inch pieces
2 TBS olive oil
pinch of salt
pinch of pepper
1 TBS lemon juice
Parmesan cheese (fresh is best, canned will work)

                              
My dad has an awesome garden this year, so I had some beet greens lying around. I also had about half a bunch of kale(the other half was used in soup, yay soup!). I decided to be a rebel and cook them together.

When I tore up all the leaves, saved the beets, and discarded the stems, I ended up with about 8 cups of greens.
                               
Place your greens in a bowl, drizzle the olive oil over the greens and toss to coat. They will be a little bit shiny, like in that picture up there. They already have their olive oil coat on in that picture.

Next you are going to want to sprinkle on the salt and pepper.

                                

Look! Action shots! Fake action shots because I wasn't really sprinkling at the time, but action shots no less. I use a bit less than half a teaspoon of each salt and pepper on my greens. Toss them around again-to distribute the salt and pepper.

Place your greens on a baking sheet (no need to grease), and slid them into a 300 degree oven.

                                   
I had to wash my baking sheet first. It had cookie remnants on it. Juliet and I were learning about letter O today. Oatmeal starts with O, so we Obviously had to make oatmeal cookies. If you have to wash yours too, make sure it is nice and dry before you stick your greens on there.

Bake your greens for 20 minutes, stir them around a bit, and then bake for another 15-20 minutes, until all the edges are nice and crispy.
                                        
                                   
Once your greens are nice and crisp. Take them out of the oven. While they are still warm, sprinkle on your lemon juice and Parmesan cheese (however much looks good to you).

The resulting greens are seriously awesome and flavorful. A little bit salty, a bit earthy, all delicious.  I have used this method with Kale, Beets Greens, and Mustard Greens. It should work on other greens (like collard), but if you try it, and it fails, don't blame me.

The quicker you serve this dish, the better it will be, since if it sits you lose some of your crispiness.
                                           
Since Daniel is still at work, and Juliet is on hour 4 of her nap, I might just have to eat it all myself. (They look a lot darker, because I moved into a different room and the lighting was different.)

If you want just the recipe, without all my ramblings, I created this nice little card for you!