Collards for the New Year

I’m not necessarily good at keeping New Year’s resolutions but this year one of mine is to finally join a CSA so we can start getting more food that’s fresh, local, a little healthier, and a little more environmentally friendly. First though I need to convince myself that my family will actually eat the kind of food we’d be getting. I’m not worrying about things like arugula, eggplant, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, lettuces, garlic, basil and blueberries. That we will devour. But I’m resolving to get a little more adventurous in the kitchen with things like kale and collards, turnips and beets as a sort of test run before we commit to buying produce that only I’m willing to eat. Yesterday I decided to start things off with a 2-pound bag of Georgia-grown collards, appropriate for a New Years meal. I found this recipe for a curry sweet potato-collard-carrot-tomato-chickpea stew (I also threw in some olive oil), which when served with some basmati rice and homemade cornbread made for a nice meal. I gave Rob a pep talk about it all and he decided to maybe not exactly love, but at least like, the collard stew and while the boys mostly shunned the collards they at least picked around them and gobbled up everything else. Owen even ate a few of the collards, which I think led to some later indigestion, but oh well… If you have family-friendly recipes that put locally grown produce to good use (including a recipe that actually inspires the kids to eat the collards too), please share.

And Happy New Year!