What's up everyone! This week we have a recipe suggestion from our purchasing manager, Justin. He mentioned that he had made collard greens one night and that it might be a good recipe for our site, so here we are!

To start, this was the first time I've ever made or had collard greens, so I made sure to bring Justin in to try them out. Once I had received his okay I decided that I could share this recipe with all of you. So, let's discuss the important things to keep in mind when making this dish.

Firstly, in the video you will see that I started out using a dutch oven and eventually switch to a stock pot. I'm sure you can make a dutch oven work, but for the amounts I used you will need a stock pot or some other kind of very large pot. The next thing to keep in mind is the broth. Through some research, I found that the broth this dish creates is called "Pot likker" and is not to be thrown away. Now, we will be using 96 fl oz of chicken stock or water for this recipe, so make sure you have a container that can hold that much. That's about 3/4 of a gallon. I've read that this broth is great for dipping cornbread or making soups, and I can confirm that dipping the cornbread in it is quite delicious. The broth is more on the savory side and the sweet cornbread mixes with it perfectly. I've not made soup with it yet, but it seems like this shouldn't be a direct replacement for stock but something to add. So, if you're making a vegetable soup and it calls for 4 cups of vegetable broth, substitute something like 1 cup (or to taste) with the pot likker. The next thing I learned in the research for this recipe was the issue of the stem. Some people like to leave them on, some people like to cut them out. I chose to cut them out because I don't like stems on other foods, but the choice is yours.

The last two things to keep in mind with this recipe are: the time required to make it and how to cut the collards. I removed the stems by cutting the leaves where they stick out from the stem. Stack several leaves on top of each other and tightly roll the leaves into log shapes. Cut the log in sections about an inch thick then cut those sections in half. The cook time is something close to 2.5 hours. Now, most of this is just simmer time and I fully understand why. While I was buying collard greens I was surprised to feel how firm the leaves and stems were. The first 30 minutes is mostly prepping the ingredients and cooking the beef bacon, the remaining 2 hours is reserved for slowly cooking the collard greens so they're tender but not too soft. Make sure you take a bite of your collard greens before you call them done, just to make sure they're as tender as you'd like. Some people like them to be a bit firmer, some like it a bit softer, once you give it a taste test you'll know which you are!

And that's it! The rest of the information you can find below, but if you want to see me make this click here!

Ingredients:

1 package of Midamar Breakfast Beef, kit into bite size pieces

1 lb Midamar Hickory Smoked turkey Breast, cut into bite sized pieces

1 lb Collard greens, stems removed and chopped into small pieces (see note above)

2 Yellow Onions, sliced or cut into small pieces

~1/4 cup apple cider vinegar

1 tbsp Sugar

6 cloves Garlic, minced

96 fl oz Unsalted Chicken Stock

salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1) In a stock pot, cook breakfast beef for about 7 minutes over medium heat or until just starting to get crispy. Add onions, cover and cook for 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and hickory smoked turkey breast, cook for 1-2 minutes or until garlic is fragrant. Add remaining ingredients, stir to combine. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and cook for 2 hours checking every 30 minutes and stirring as needed

2) Strain collards from broth, reserve broth for dipping cornbread or making soup. Serve collard greens with fried chicken and cornbread