Some greens and a loaf of meat...

We get a weekly organic produce box and this past week it included collard greens.  I'd never eaten collard greens, let alone cooked with them.  But there they were, sitting in my fridge...challenging me.  :-)

So, I sliced them into strips and braised them in butter, a smashed clove of garlic, and salt & pepper.  When they had wilted and had a nice color, I added the juice of a lemon and some leftover broth from my Sunday pot roast.  And you know what?  They were delicious.  I really like collard greens, Sam-I-am.  I enjoy spinach, and I like lacinto kale, but I don't like the other kales as much, and I detest chard (blech!).  But collards taste like broccoli more than anything else.  When we weren't looking, one of the dogs stole some off a plate.  So dogs like collard greens too. 

I also served tomatoes sliced up and dressed with olive oil, salt & pepper - because I wasn't sure if the boys would eat the collards.  But they did! 

And I made an improvised meatloaf.


Meatloaf

1 pound of ground beef
1 demi-baguette, turned into bread crumbs (I just toasted the whole thing in the oven, then used my knife to break it up.  This was the bread I made a week ago...so it was nice and stale for crumbs.)
1/2 small sweet onion (chopped)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
2 Tbs tamari (soy sauce)
2 Tbs dijon mustard
1 Egg
2 Tbs tomato paste
1/2 cup fontina cheese, cut into small cubes (or another meltable cheese)
1 tsp of cumin
1 Tbs of hot sauce (we used sriracha)
A few leaves of basil, chopped (it'll bruise, but that's okay here)

The ingredients are sort of random, because I had all of that on hand and didn't have to go shopping to make dinner (which is always nice).  I would have used parsley instead of basil, but basil worked. 

Mix everything together and put into a loaf pan.  Bake at 350 for about 1 hour until the meat is cooked through.  (In a convection oven, it will be done in about 45 minutes.)

I think this would make for an easy weeknight meal.  I just assemble in the morning and have one of the boys pop it in the oven after school.  The meatloaf wasn't dry at all and was very flavorful.  Boys were pretty happy.  It made awesome sandwiches the next day too.