My new favorite vegetable: Mustard Greens

Most of my classmates in dietetics probably remember my love for squash. Often times, I was even referred to as the squash queen due to my over exubarance for the flesh of the fall bearing fruit, but let it be known......I have found a new vegetable passion.............MUSTARD GREENS. Mustard greens, if you didn't know, are a spicy green which is hard to eat alone and uncooked when it is a full grown plant (but good alone when it's a baby-younger things are less bitter, its a fact of life). But when you cook it and add some cheese and onions......it becomes delicous beyond all belief. Plus mustard greens come with all sorts of green vegetable goodness: LOTS of vitamins A&C, some folate, some calcium and a bunch of maganese, and of course - countless things our body needs that only the man upstairs knows about. My favorite and introductory recipe for mustard greens comes from Mollie Katzen's cookbook The Vegetable Dishes I can't Live Without. It only takes like a 1/2 hour to prepare this dish and if you serve it over pasta, you'll be too stuffed for dessert, so please.......go to the farmers market........get some FRESH mustard greens........and come to know why Mollie describes herself as LEAF GEEK.




BITTER GREENS with SWEET ONIONS and TART CHEESE

• 2 T extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cups slice SWEET onions (like vidalia)
• 3 large bunches fresh mustard greens, stems removed and coarsely chopped (12 cups)
• salt (to taste)
• up to 1 cup FETA cheese, crumbled
• freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
  
  
  
  1. Place a large, deep skillet over medium heat. After about a minute, add the olive oil and swirl to coat the pan. Add the onions and saute over high heat for about 5 mintues. Reduce the heat to medium, cover the pan, and let the onions cook until very tender, about 10 more minutes.
  
  2. Add the greens in batches, sprinkling very lightly with salt after each addition and turning them with tongs, brining up the wilted ones from the bottom oto the top of the pile.
  
  3. When all the greens have wilted, stir in the cheese and cook for just about 2 mintues longer.
  
  4. Transfer to a platter and grind on a generous amount of black pepper. Serve hot or warm, on or next to pasta or grains, or by itself. (I like it on bowtie pasta)