Tree Collard Pesto

We have some tree collards that have gone crazy over the winter, they are over 10 ft tall and very prolific. I don't know about you but I find the tree collards a little tough. Over the winter I made some soups and cooked the collards for a long time, perhaps 30-45 minutes.  I was thinking of ways to use a lot of collard greens and some preservation methods. Next time, I will try dehydrating the collards so we can use them in soups and stews. Today, I was inspired to make a pesto to serve with the white gigante beans I'm cooking in the solar oven. 

After a bit of inspiration via the Internet, this is what I did:

Collect 15-20 good sized  collard leaves, remove the stems, put in a pyrex container with a couple of tablespoons of water, cover and microwave for 7 minutes.  Cool drain and squeeze as much water out as possible, set aside. Put 1.5 ozs of romano cheese in the food processor and pulse until finely chopped set aside. Put the collards in the food processor bowl with 1/2 clove of garlic, collard greens, 1 teaspoon of vinegar, 2 T of olive oil, 1 T of fermented peppers, or hot sauce to taste (a previous project), 6 San Marzano tomatoes halved, roasted ( a previous canning project), and pulse until well blended. Add the cheese and pulse a few more times, then spoon  into a canning jar pour a bit of olive oil on top to prevent oxidation, and store in the refrigerator until use. I would imagine this should last about a week. 

You can use this pesto in many ways. I even ate it off the spoon and it was delicious. The best part, is this is very healthy and every spoonful is like eating a big collard leaf!

Sauerkraut pancakes

Ever since I sat next to the owner, Kathryn Lukas, of Farmhouse Culture at the Happy Girl Kitchen pop-up dinner with guest Sandor Katz a few weeks ago, I'm a bit more obsessed with fermenting things than usual. Dave made a gallon of sauerkraut with kohlrabi and cabbage that tastes delicious, so today I made saurkraut pancakes. I did a little bit of Internet research, and there were not a lot of recipes. However I was inspired by one here, which is basically mixing 250 g of sauerkraut (water squeezed out before weighing) with one cup of flour, one egg and one cup of milk. For those who have made pancakes before, you'll notice this is the basic pancake recipe. I did add a pinch of baking soda and a pinch of baking powder to the mix, but skipped the salt you would normally find in a pancake recipe, because the sauerkraut had some salt already in it. These pancakes were very tasty and very filling on their own. I bet they would be good as a savory side dish, at room temperature, as a nice lunch with a salad. Next time I make them, I will experiment and add more onion powder, paprika and other spices. Basically 250 grams of any kind of sauerkraut with a pancake batter made from one cup of any type of flour, with your own spices, would be lovely!