I’ve been trying to add some healthy variety to my diet. I get pretty bored with my usual vegetable choices so I decided to try cooking collard greens, a southern comfort food I may have sampled before but had never prepared myself. These leafy greens, along with being full of nutrients, may help lower cholesterol. I’m sure we could all benefit from that.

I started by rinsing the leaves well and, with a bit of overkill, I soaked them in a mixture of vinegar and water, hoping to kill any miscellaneous bacteria that might be lurking. (This is something I learned to do with produce when traveling to countries with unclean drinking water.) Next, I tore the surprisingly large, thick leaves from the stems. I will admit to being skeptical about eating such tough leaves. After discarding the stems, I used my kitchen shears to hack the leaves into smaller pieces.

I truly believe that everything is better with bacon, so I fried a couple of slices to crumble into the final dish. I probably negated the cholesterol lowering properties of the collards by doing this but, whatever! I added chopped onion to the bacon grease, along with a chopped apple. I added the greens, a little water, and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, then simmered until the leaves were tender.

The final product was a hit! It will be a few steps beyond normal, but when I plant the Wallace deer buffet, aka my garden, I’m going to add a small patch of collard greens and hope that the deer won’t like them. If they do, I guess I’ll just have to be happy that they are benefiting from the healthy plant. After all, they won’t be getting bacon grease with theirs!