Southern Labor Day BBQ Feast

Labor Day meant cooking a barbecue feast in our household! Smoked ribs, roasted sweet potato "chips", ranch-style beans and collard greens....yum, yum!

Alex smoked the ribs for 7 hours while I baked chocolate chip cookies, banana zucchini muffins and made a double batch of chicken enchiladas (one batch to take to our friends who just had a baby and one batch for us to eat for dinner later this week).

At the grocery store this week I was compelled to purchase collard greens and try to make some healthified southern-style greens to accompany our barbecue dinner. I had never made collard greens before and felt like now was as good a time as any to tackle it!

I really had no idea what I was doing to prepare them but they turned out SUPER tasty and we really enjoyed them. Here's what I did (it's really simple....nothing earth shattering):

Simple Southern Collard Greens

Source: Me

1 bunch collard greens

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1/2 cup chicken broth

Remove collard leaves from the stalk and tear into smaller pieces. Toss them into a pot just big enough to hold all of them (they will shrink down as they cook). Turn heat on pot to medium and add chicken stock and garlic slices. Let heat until you hear the liquid starting to boil and then turn the heat down to medium-low. Cover the pot and let simmer for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally (ours simmered for closer to 50 minutes). The longer the greens simmer the less tough and bitter they get. You could also add some hot sauce or red pepper flakes to the greens to add some spice.

We'll definitely make these again! Not only are they tasty and simple, but they're also a very healthy side dish.

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We had a banana on it's last leg and a zucchini hanging out in the fridge so I googled "zucchini and banana muffins" and this recipe caught my eye:

Healthy Banana Zucchini Muffins

I'm not sure how "healthy" they are since the recipe calls for a cup of vegetable oil and 1.5 cups of sugar, but whatever. I guess the author considers it healthy because it has fruit and veggies in the recipe. :)

The muffins are tasty though and they fit the bill of what I wanted so I'm not gonna hold the un-healthiness against them. (Libby seemed to really enjoy them when she snatched one off the counter while our backs were turned. Grrrr....bad doggie!!)

As a side note, the recipe calls for white whole wheat flour but I subbed in plain 'ole whole wheat flour and it seemed to work just fine.

Also, I halved the recipe (because I only had one banana) and it made 12 muffins. So if you made the whole recipe it would make 24 muffins. I think they would freeze well though so I kinda wish I did have extras so I could freeze some and pop them in the microwave whenever I want a muffin. :(

How did you spend your holiday? Cook or bake anything interesting?