What could be better in rice than Shrimp and Bacon. It smells and tastes great! Thus begins my rationale that a recipe with shrimp and bacon would be the perfect combination to stand up to the flavor of collard greens.
Remember these?
They are the final hold out from last week’s farm box. While collard greens pack quite a nutritional punch, they are NOT my go to vegetable for flavor. But, I am committed not to using all of the veggies in the box so, its shrimp and bacon to the rescue.
Ingredients:
5 cups Brown Rice, measure after cooking
1 small Onion Chopped
2 cloves Garlic, pressed
12-15 Shrimp – cleaned and de-veined
4 Strips Bacon – chopped before cooking
8 – 10 leaves Collard Greens
1/4 cup of water
The juice of 1 lemon
2 Tomatoes, chopped
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Pinch of Red Pepper Flakes
3 eggs beaten
First, chop your bacon and get it sizzling
Cook bacon until it is brown and then remove from the pan. While your bacon is cooking, prepare your collard greens by removing the center spine and chopping the leaves into 1″ pieces.
Add your chopped onions and cook for 5 minutes. Then add the collard greens, red pepper flakes and garlic and saute for a couple of minutes.
Then, add the 1/4 cup of water and juice of one lemon. You will see steam as soon as you add the liquid. Cover and let cook for 15 minutes to tenderize the collard greens.
After 15 minutes, remove the lid and add your rice, shrimp, and bacon into the collard green mixture. The heat will cook the shrimp pretty quickly.
Add in your beaten egg and cook for an additional 10 minutes just stirring one time. By letting it cook without stirring often, it will brown throughout and get a little crispy.
Place in a serving bowl and top with chopped tomatoes. I used green since that was what had ripened in our garden. I would have preferred red, but those weren’t ready.
Hooray!!! I used my collard greens and I must admit the recipe is really quite tasty. I would welcome any collard green ideas you may have for the future as I am sure they will reappear in my box in the near future.
