Growing up in Detroit my experience with greens was iceberg lettuce and canned spinach.  When we had a salad, we had a wedge of iceberg with two cherry tomatoes, a cucumber slice, and lots of blue cheese dressing that covered the bowl.  Canned spinach – yum, what’s not to love about that? We had to drown it in vinegar just to eat it.  Not a lot of choice and not a lot of flavor.

Over the years I have found that I was missing quite a bit.  When I moved out west (California and Seattle), I discovered Caesar salads with Romain lettuce.   I also discovered arugula but hadn’t come to love it.  I also found out that you could get spinach from somewhere other than a can.

Then I moved to the south (Tampa).  I found out greens can be slow cooked, and you can make a salad out of just about any green.  I also got hooked on bbq and in certain areas of the country, bbq is served with greens, cornbread and mac and cheese, not potato salad or French fries.

So with that intro, here are some quick and simple green recipes ideas.

Arugula-  just get a pizza and throw some on the hot pie to add a peppery freshness

Arugula salad – arugula, finely sliced red onion, sliced onion,  almonds,  grapefruit slices with a balsamic vinaigrette (3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar)

Beet greens – 1 pound beet greens, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 cloves diced garlic,  1 small shallot, 1/2 teaspoon red pepper, 1/4 cup Parmesan shavings, salt and pepper

Sauté garlic in olive oil until soft; add the rest of the ingredients

Spinach –  there is a spinach artichoke dip recipe on this blog check it out

Not so Classic spinach salad – 1 bag baby spinach, bacon bits, mandarin oranges, slivered red onions, 3 parts olive oil and one part vinegar, salt and pepper. Croutons if you want.

Napa cabbage is the best taco shell I know and it can be used for Asian wraps.

Watercress – sorry, don’t know why but I still can’t warm up to it

Kale – sautéed in olive oil with carmalized onions on a baked sweet potato with thyme