Sunday, November 23, 2008

Southern Style Reds and Greens

A few days ago I posted about the Red and Green colors in my backyard. Now I want to take you to my community and show you the reds and greens we have, Southern style. This past Saturday our farmers' market had a community marketplace where we had the typical Southern November market produce: pecans, sweet potatoes, and greens (turnip, mustard, and collard). Plus we had jams and jellies, salsas, baked goods, and crafts.








Since I'm new to true Southern cooking, I've been a bit hesitant about trying my hand with such standards as sweet potatoes and greens (many times I've cooked chard, arugula, and kale, but those really aren't 'Southern'; and I've done the occasional baked sweet potato). But this weekend I decided there was really nothing stopping me, so why not try out my culinary skills with such fare? I bought some turnip greens and sweet potatoes and tried my version of reds and greens.



I roasted the reddish sweet potatoes in the oven with some rosemary. And then I sauteed the turnip greens with onion, garlic, white beans, and balsamic. A little S&P on both and we had a winner meal. It wasn't bad with a red meritage from Hahn Winery either! Maybe the way I cooked these reds and greens wasn't exactly Southern, but it was a nice first step for me.

6 comments:

  1. Jean, it was a healthier southern way to prepare them. A little bacon or pancetta in the greens is good too. I love roasted sweet taters. Yum.~~Dee

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love your red and greens! And how wonderful that you have a farmers market - I frequent our local farmers market every week. I have such an appreciation for the farmers now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Jean, not only do those dishes you prepared sound wonderful, they LOOK so good I could lick the computer screen. Better not, though, yuck what a mess. I like your way of preparing the sweet potatoes way better then the marshmallow version too.
    Frances

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dee - pancetta sounds like a great idea!

    Chloe - it is wonderful that we have a farmers market. It started this year after I put out flyers looking for volunteers to help us get one started. There was much pent up demand!

    Frances - thanks, glad you thought the food looked good. It was, and probably a lot tastier than a computer screen!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yummy! I made roasted sweet potato 'fries' the other night too... they're showing up at more restaurants and boy, are they good...

    looks like it was chilly at the farmer's market, but everyone's smiles were warm. Nice post!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for the idea Jean! I prepared this too. I made a blue cheese dip for the sweet potatoes after reading about that combination in another blog - it was so good. I used this recipe for the dip (except I used vegenaise instead of mayonnaise and pear infused balsamico instead of the vinegar they mention): http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/green-salad-with-blue-cheese-dressing-recipe/index.html

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for visiting! I truly appreciate your visit and comments. If you ask me a question in your comment, I will answer it here.