Sauteed Mustard Greens with Garlic (Page 541)

RECIPE #831

• Date: Thursday, September 11, 2008 -- 9pm
• Location: Bloomington, IN
• Kitchen: My Apartment
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B-
  

As is no secret on this blog, I am not a huge fan of bitter greens. My special gentleman likes them OK though, so I figured I would make this recipe while he was in town last week to eat it. The procedure for this one was quite simple. I made a paste of garlic and salt and cooked it in olive oil. Once it was nice and fragrant I added the mustard greens, cooked until wilted, then added some water and cooked a couple minutes more. Then I seasoned and served. The result wasn't half bad. The greens were bitter, of course, but the garlic provided a nice contrasting flavor. This was a very basic recipe -- there is not a lot going on besides the flavor of the greens. If you like mustard greens, you will like it. If you don't, you probably won't. This recipe certainly isn't earth-shaking, but if you are looking for a super simple way to cook mustard greens, you could give this one a try.

Here is the recipe.

I have been swamped lately, so even though it's Saturday I started the day with a long to-do list of things I needed to accomplish. It's 11:23pm and I just checked the last thing off my list. That's a pretty wild Saturday night, huh?!? I will hesitantly admit that I worked until 11pm last night too... It never ceases to amaze me the power that check-lists have over me. If I didn't have this list in front of me I am sure I would have opened a beer at 9pm and watched a movie, or gone out somewhere. But I looked at my list, saw all the things I had left to do, and got to the business of finishing them instead. This is not a bad thing, but it is a little ridiculous. I made that checklist myself last night, so it shouldn't really have so much authority over me. In theory I could just excuse myself from some of the items on the list, or tack them on the list for tomorrow. But nonetheless, whenever it is within reason I attempt to finish my list before I head off to bed. Part of it is that I really like the sense of accomplishment I get from looking at a list with everything crossed off. I love crossing things off. In college sometimes I would add things I had already done to my to-do list just so I could cross them off. That really is ridiculous! It is so satisfying though!

Now that my list is done, maybe I will crack open that beer and watch a movie. Or maybe I will just go to bed, so that I can start tomorrow's list nice and early!