Pot o' Collards

Imagine if you will New Years day, the Rocky theme song playing in the background and this white girl baking up some delicious grub for lunch!

No, really the Rocky song was playing because my boys, Coach included, wouldn't stop pressing the button on the stuffed Santa Claus that did push ups to Rocky's music.

My mom had came over the night before and brought some awesome black eyed peas and cornbread. So that part of the lunch was covered. Next it was my turn.

My goal this year was to cook a pot of kickin' greens that would melt in your mouth. So, I got the 'how to' from my mom and set forth to the grocery store. I actually bought fresh collard greens that needed to be washed and de-stemmed and I actually found a pack of ham hock to cook with said greens.

While the greens were cookin' the boys were outside flying kites. Soo much fun! There was a nasty storm coming through so the wind was unbelievable. Yes, Coach was outside flying a kite. Don't subtract any man points just yet.  Coach had quadrupled the length of the kite string so the kite went so high in the air you almost couldn't see it. Totally awesome!

Back to the lunch. I fried pork chops and also baked a southern style peach cobbler to go along with the years best greens ever!

 

Ready for a picture?

 

Hum the Rocky tune while you scroll down for the big finale!

 

Booyah Baby!

I know you are wondering if Coach liked the greens. Well, lets just say he jumped the gun too soon and put hot pepper sauce on the greens before tasting them and got what he deserved, lol. The sauce was too hot and he had to get himself a new bowl o' greens. That will teach him not to trust a first time collard cooker. The greens were delicious in my opinion and I will definitely be cooking them again!

Want to know my collard cooking strategy? I don't know technical terms and I probably did it completely wrong but it worked, ha! I cleaned the greens the night before. When I was ready to cook them I started by boiling water, chicken broth, salt and pepper, a pouch of Goya seasoning, and cut up pieces of ham hock. This concoction boiled for a while, 30 minutes maybe, and then I let it simmer while I added the greens to the mixture. The greens actually simmered for about 2.5 to 3 hours before we ate. Everything was so tender and so juicy.

We spent the rest of the day watching America's Funniest Home Videos marathon. What a great New Years!