Dark Days: Southern Style

We had a wonderful local Christmas ham, much bigger than we needed. So I warmed up some leftover ham slices while I baked a pan of cornbread (all local: cornmeal, my homemade yogurt, organic whole wheat pastry flour, egg). We ate it with local honey and local butter.

And I chopped up a big bunch of local kale.



I put it in my cast iron Dutch oven with a little water, salt, pepper, some red pepper flakes, and a smidge of sugar. I learned this method of seasoning for kale and collards from living in red-dirt Georgia and also from a southern cookbook.

Anyway, I put the kale on medium heat, covered, and stirred occasionally for maybe 10 minutes. The kale started getting bright green.



When it got darker and softer (easier for my children to chew), I added some finely chopped garlic



and let it cook a few more minutes (my southern cook mentor, Queenie, cooked hers for an hour or so! and garlic never touched her greens). Ahhhhh - greens, so refreshing after all the rich Christmas food!