Well, I always thought I was a southern girl. But evidently the Paula Deen gene is not in my pool. I tried turnip greens today. From scratch. Using Paula's recipe on foodnetwork.com loosely... my own interpretation... that may be the part I shoulda skipped. LOL
First of all, I bought fresh turnip greens from the farmers market yesterday, brought them home and tried washing them, cause dang they were sandy! Well, I washed the heck out of them last night, and left them in a pan of water all day today, and when I got home from work, I was gonna cook them.... Well, they smelled like dead cat poop. omg! I had to throw them out. I rinsed and rinsed, but ugh... they stunk up my whole house...
Well, I was not to be defeated!!! So I go to my little grocery store on the corner, and buy a hog jowl and 3 bunches of fresh turnip greens, and by golly, I'm gonna do it!!!
I bring it home, put the hog jowl in water with some bacon grease and boil the crap out of it for 2 hours... in the meantime, I start washing the turnip greens. I rinsed them once.... twice.... three times. Then I spent the better part of an hour desteming them but they still felt sandy, so I rinsed them again..... and again.... I made piles of them on the counter on dishtowels to drain.
Once the hog jowl got semi tender, I took it out of the water to cool, and diced up a turnip and added it to the water. I let it simmer about a half hour. Then I added the two huge mounds of turnip greens that I felt like I had blood invested in, cause I spent sooooo much time on the damned things. I added some pepper flakes, salt and pepper to the water, and added the humongous mounds of turnip greens to the pot. within seconds it cooked down (as I expected) and I let it simmer for about 1/2 hour.
I went in for the taste... added some more salt, and then it hit me.... too much red pepper flakes! oh my! a bit too spicy... but I thought, OK, keep trying....
Then I started stirring and I could feel the grit on the bottom of the pan!!!! I washed the bejeebers out of that crap, and it still had sand in it.
I give up. I give up my title as a southern cook. If I can't cook turnip greens, then I'm definitely turning in my crown. Hanging head in shame......
From now on, I will be buying my turnip greens from the freezer case... If I'm banished from the south, I apologize ahead of time.
If anyone has any suggestions, Please PLEASE let me know. I just can not go to my grave not being able to cook turnip greens. (just kidding)
Ok, That is all for today. I still have all my yogurt stuff to post. Will try to get to that tomorrow.
And for lack of any other cutesie tag line...... PEACE OUT!!!!!
Hi, My name is Dinah and I try very hard to live a healthy eating lifestyle. I wanted a place to gather my thoughts and recipes, and hopefully share some info with my friends and family.
4 comments:
Dinah, you have to fill the whole sink with water, put in 5 leaves or so, agitate then allow the water to settle. The sand should fall to the bottom. Then gently without agitating remove the floating leaves. I usually have to do this 3 times before I feel they are sand free enough to eat. I do this with spinach and loose leaf lettuce from the garden too (the slugs fall to the bottom too :).
oh geez, thanks for the info Ananymous, but I don't know if I have the patience for that! LOL I would have been there for days with 5 or so leaves at a time. maybe i'm just an impatient cook. who knows? thanks for the feedback tho. I may get brave again some day....
Dinah, they also sell bags of pre-washed greens at walmart that`s what i`ve used!!
Love the blog... Hate turnip greens. Must be a Yankee SJS
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