Vegetable 6: It ain't easy being greens

Being from the Midwest, I had no idea people even ate cooked greens until we moved to Florida and I encountered them on a few restaurant menus on my trip down here.  It was a bizarre concept to me...why in God's name would anyone want to eat warm, limp leaves?  I seem to remember at one time or another, my mom made me take a bite of her greens when we were out to eat (yes, I'm nearly 25 and my mom is still able to force me to eat my vegetables), but I don't recall their flavor or even what kind of greens they were.  Still...I figured for the purpose of my little experiment, they'd be worth a go.  Also...I have the beet greens leftover from when I made beets last time.  Waste not, want not!

Here's what you'll need:

Greens from about 3 beets

4 slices of bacon, chopped

4 green onions, chopped

salt and pepper

Well first things first...trim the stems off the leaves and chop those leaves into pieces.  Then rinse them thoroughly with cold water.  Shake as much of that water off as you can and set aside.

In a deep skillet, cook the bacon until crispy...be careful not to burn it!  Remove the bacon to a paper towel lined plate.  Drain all but 1 tbsp of grease from the skillet.  

Add the green onions and cook for approximately 1 minute.  Add the greens carefully and cook until tender.  This will take about 5 minutes.  Add the bacon back to the greens and serve...add salt and pepper to taste.

As you know, anything with bacon is aces in my book, but this one was a little less than great.  The greens were too bitter for my taste.  Now, I'll be the first to admit that it could have been an error on my part, or even just a bad batch of greens...but nonetheless, we probably won't be trying beet greens again anytime soon.  Perhaps next time we'll try a more 'user friendly' green like kale or collard greens.