Cornbread and turnip greens

What happened? I have been watching my turnip greens grow and I finally picked a Walmart bag full. After carefully washing the greens, they completely filled up a big container. I set the cooking surface to low and came back in about thirty minutes and all I could see was a few in the bottom. Is there anything better than cornbread and turnip greens? They were so good but none were left over for tomorrow.


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Instead of turnip greens, I had dock, dandelions, chicory, and upland cress…and they had such water content they cooked and shrunk, just like your turnips. Extremely tender.
That was Friday…and if I want more today, I’ll have to pick some.

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Where I live in Italy, turnips are unknown but to a few. A friend of my Italian wife’s uncle suggested he try turnips for the health benefits. He grew it, threw away the greens and ate the tuber or whatever you call the bulbous root. I had to school him

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Turnip, Collard, and Mustard greens really depend on the cooking. If cooked poorly I find them almost inedible. If cooked ā€œrightā€ they are some of my absolute favorites. I’ve had many recipes, from those using lots of smoked pork and bacon fat, to vegetarian, which were delicious. Unfortunately I can’t seem to duplicate any of them. My greens end up pretty good but not great.

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You discovered the percentage of water in the greens.

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What you need to do is steam them a couple of minutes so they ā€œwiltā€ down and then put them in the pot to cook. Keep steaming more until you have enough in your pot.

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Most everyone around here grows Purple Top and it is what I have always eaten. The greens are good and the bulbs are as well as long as they are picked before they get too old. I like the bulbs raw or chipped up in a salad. This variety is 7 Top and from what I read it has one of the best tasting greens but the bulb is too fibrous to eat. The greens were very good with cornbread.

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Auburn, Looks really good. Just hope you used buttermilk to make the cornbread!! I have plenty of kale, mustard growing…waiting for a bit for frost to harvest. Thanks for sharing, Randy/GA

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Find Verteus Marteau turnip seed and see if you might like them better. I was blown away by how much better they taste than most others I’ve grown.

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Love me some turnip/mustard mixed greens but now prefer collards over them… but anymore, I kind of sautee mine in bacon grease, with some onions & peppers chopped in there, and sprinkle with chicken bouillon powder just before I add just a smidge of water to simmer them for a short while.

I remember as a kid, my dad had planted a row of turnips about a quarter mile long - or at least, it seemed like it… he must have used at least a couple of pounds of turnip seed. My mom kept after me to pick a mess of them for her, so I picked… and packed in, as tight as I could, 4 or 5 big paper grocery bags full. Pretty well filled the bathtub, but they cooked down… but still way more than we could eat at one sitting, so a bunch went in the freezer. They were better fresh.

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What varieties of Collards are you growing? Did you see the Collard Heirloom Project from few years ago. I trialed a bunch and I grow Yellow Cabbage and Vates mostly. New this year is Even Star Landrace and Top Chop Hybrid. All are growing great and just waiting on a frost in a few weeks. Been eating Pak Choy to hold me over. Wife doesn’t like turnips or collards but will stir fry the pak choy and eat it.

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Yes, we always use buttermilk but we never add sugar to our cornbread.

While i lived in KY… its common to douse the greens with pepper sauce. It took me a long time to get away from it…

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I also got into putting kraut in my soup beans while living there…that was weird but seemed to be a local thing. I like it.

Down south i had me a nice helping of Southern Style Rutabagas and ham… that was very good.

To answer your question… a good mess of collards and hoe cakes to me is divine.

I had some grilled corn at a festival i went to this weekend… not sure how or why its so much better this time of the year. Its an October treat that i always look forward to.

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I’ve grown GA Southern, Vates, and Nancy Malone Purple.
Have a couple of packets of ā€˜Ultracross’ collard & ā€˜Kaleidoscope’ kale grexes that I’d intended to plant this fall, but haven’t managed to get them in the ground.
I do love me some rutabagas… have a pkt of ā€˜Rutabanging’ rutabaga grex that I also have not yet gotten in the ground.
I’ve just got too much to do in my retirement!

My mom would accuse me of blasphemy, putting sugar in my cornbread, but I like just a little in there… I know I’m living up here in the frigid northland of KY, just north of the TN line, but I don’t consider myself to be a Yankee, even though I’ve left The South, and put sugar in my cornbread.
I like some pepper sauce (I pickle my own cayennes) on my greens. My maternal grandfather spooned sugar over his… and I ate them that way as a kid, but no more.

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I also use pepper sauce. It is good to me on turnip greens and beans.

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Canning (cold pack) gives a better result than the freezer with turnip or mustard greens.
But, usually there’s only a couple months I can’t find some good wild greens to pick,
so the need for putting them up for the winter has not been too strong.

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7-top turnips and wild black mustard…makes a perfect combination.
As a kid…I’d go looking…never planted any intentionally,
though I do sometimes anymore.
Collards…never saw any until ā€˜middle-aged’ I think. Pretty good, but not my first choice.

Just give me the cooked greens, a little salt in the kettle, and a quarter spoon of some kind of shortening…olive oil is my choice anymore…though as a kid it used to be lard.
Good greens … let’s just say if you have to spice or doctor them, then there must have been something wrong about them.

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Does he eat cima di rapa? Those are literally turnip greens with a broccoli bonus.

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My family always used a little bit of vinegar on the greens when we eat them.

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Nope, none of us have tried it. I grow broccoli though

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