Thursday, May 12, 2011

Garden to Table Challenge - week 2



Totally missed week 1 of the Garden to Table Challenge - just so much going on this spring that I never found the time.

In the garden:



Greens. Lots of greens. Turnip greens, spinach, kale, lettuce and mesclun. The story of spring, I suppose.

We all know greens are really great for us. And if we're all being honest, we'll admit that steamed greens are... well.... not really all that good.

So instead of sharing healthy recipes for greens this week, I'll just share some tasty ones.

There are two things that compliment greens beautifully: pork and hominy.

Unless you don't like hominy. But we do. And taking a page from Southern cooking - bacon makes just about everything taste better.

Recipe #1: Lewis and Clark's bacon and hominy (altered from Cooking on the Lewis and Clark Expedition by Mary Gunderson. Because we're homeschoolers, and we love books like that.)

1/2 package of bacon
2 cans of hominy
A big ol' handful of chopped greens. (Whatever's the most prolific in the garden is fine.)
Pepper

Chop the bacon into bite sized pieces. Fry it up in a pot on the stove. When it's mostly crisp, add the hominy and greens and pepper to taste. Simmer until the greens are wilted and the hominy is warm.

This makes a nice side dish. The kids also love it for breakfast topped with a scrambled egg and some cheese.

Recipe #2 comes from Mark Bittman's The Food Matters Cookbook, my current obsession. You should all go buy it. Seriously, it's that good. Nearly everything we've made so far has been fantastic, and it uses natural, Real Food ingredients, and not too many 'weird' ingredients you have to go out of your way to find.

I changed up just a few little things. I'll give you my version. If you want Mark's, check out his book.

Posole (Mexican pork and hominy stew)
2 pork chops
1/2 onion, chopped
A few cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tbsp. chili powder
A big pile of any sturdy greens - I used a mix of kohlrabi, turnip and spinach - chopped
2 cans hominy, with liquid
1 can black beans (or 1 1/2 cups cooked blackbeans, if you aren't into using canned.)

Brown the pork chops in some olive oil at the bottom of a soup pot. Remove them, and cook the onions and garlic until soft. Add the chili powder, cook, and stir for another minute or so. Put the pork chops back in the pot along with the hominy, beans, and greens. Add water to cover the ingredients, bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Stir it occasionally, add more water if needed, until the pork chops are tender - about 10 minutes. Pull the pork chops out, chop them up, and return them to the pot. I served this with warmed corn tortillas, and it was really good.

What are you harvesting this spring? Be sure to share your seasonal recipes at Greenish Thumb and join in the fun (and the contest!)





3 comments:

Anke said...

We have a bunch of spinach growing in the garden and I happen to love hominy. Sounds like an awesome combination to me and I'm going to give your recipe a try. Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

These recipes sound delish! And I can almost smell the bacon in your adorable kitchen!

I love reading your blogs...

And I love you! <3

Wendy said...

Sounds really yummy - and I agree about the bacon...

That's so funny about the Lewis and Clark cookbook b/c someone in my bookgroup was just talking about that (she has it).