Creamed Hearty Greens

Here’s a loose recipe for Creamed Hearty Greens, my new go-to for using up all kinds of random vegetables and dairy products that might be hanging about your fridge. I had a bunch each of kale and collards from the wonderful Tall Grass Food Box, a subscription produce box that supports Black farmers across the state of North Carolina. They’d been sitting in the fridge for a few days with no plan though, and let’s say the eaters in my family aren’t exactly huge fans of the sturdier greens. But when you combine them with cream cheese, creme fraiche, heavy cream and a generous topping of Parmesan, all bets are off!

P.S. I forgot to take an ‘after’ picture, but here’s an Instagram demo if you’d like to see the process as well as the finished version, complete with cheesy topping.

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Creamed Hearty Greens

Author: Food Waste Feast

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 15 MinTotal time: 30 Min

This very flexible ‘recipe’ scales up or down depending on your amount of greens as well as your fondness for dairy products, hence the lack of exact measurements. Feel free to adjust as needed!

Ingredients

• A large pat of butter or splash of olive oil
• A few garlic cloves (in my case, a chunk of frozen minced garlic in oil)
• A small diced onion or shallots or another allium of choice
• Two bunches of shredded greens (I went the food processor route to get the stems very finely chopped so they could be cooked with the leaves. You could also toss stems into the pan first to give them extra time to soften)
• About a cup of dairy like heavy cream, cream cheese, mascarpone, etc (I used a big dollop of creme fraiche and half a pack of cream cheese - start with less and add more as you taste and go)
• Liquid as desired to get a more spoonable texture, like stock, water, milk, more cream, etc.
• Salt and pepper and spices of your choice, such as nutmeg or curry powder

Instructions

1. Heat the butter over medium heat and cook the onion and garlic until softened, about 5 minutes.
2. Add the greens, stir to coat, and cover to let them wilt down for 5 minutes or so. Lighter leaves like spinach will cook more quickly, sturdier ones like kale or collards will need more time.
3. Once the greens have softened, stir in your dairy products and season with salt and pepper. Saltier dairy like cream cheese will need less salt, while heavy cream will need to be seasoned generously. 
4. Stir and let cook over low heat for a bit so the flavors can meld. Thicker dairy like cream cheese or mascarpone will need some time to melt and spread out, heavy cream will need some time to cook and thicken. 
5. Taste and see how you like the texture. Is it too thick? Add some stock or cream and stir to combine. Is it too soupy? Let it cook a bit longer to thicken up. 
6. You can eat it as-is, or finish it off with handfuls of Parmesan and a few minutes under the broiler if that’s how you wanna roll. Eat, and consider stirring leftovers into pasta or folding into a taco, it keeps well!