Collard Greens

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INGREDIENTS

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2 pounds collard greens

1 onion

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon brown sugar

3 garlic cloves

2 ham hocks

½ teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

5 cups water

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SPECIAL UTENSILS

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2 3-quart slow cookers or 1 6-quart slow cooker

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Serves 6. Takes 6 hours 40 minutes.

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PREPARATION

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Cut collard greens into 1″ squares. Dice onion. Add all ingredients to slow cookers. Arrange ingredients so that ham hocks are in the middle. Slow cook on high for 6 hours. Remove ham hock. Remove meat from ham hocks and add to pot. (Discard ham hock.) Stir or until well blended.  Goes well with fried chicken, pork chops, pulled-pork sandwiches, macaroni and cheese and corn bread.

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TIDBITS

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1) This recipe says to collard greens into 1″ squares.

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2) This can be difficult to do as collard-green leaves are not squares.

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3) And if you strive for perfection ,such cutting becomes even harder. You’d have to get out your ruler. Moreover, making completely accurate 90 degrees angle for each square would drive any chef to drink. If you’re a teetotaler, may suggest near beer, or root beer, as your choice?

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4) Now we get to the collard greens’ overwhelming laziness and lack of ambition.

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5) Sure, you could watch television with your bowl of collard greens.

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6) But they will never help you with your crossword puzzles. The only way you could play catch with a bunch of collard greens is to dig a hole, and put the collard greens in the hole. Then toss the baseball into the hole. But even then the collard greens will not toss the ball back to you. This game of catch must be quite short. They will, however, be good listeners while they remain ripe.

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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.