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The Collard Patch

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The Collard Patch newly released story cookbook is all about collard greens growing, cooking, and eating and stories about growing up in Collard Country. If you think you don't like collards, you haven't tasted our collards. That's right, our collards are truly delicious prepared in very unique and creative ways. However, just imagine delicious food that is also wonderful for your heart and healthy for your body. Yes, many of our recipes are very healthy, indeed. They are low in fat, cholesterol, and sodium. How can you beat that good food that's good for you. Think of collards as appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, wraps, salads, and desserts. Yes, desserts. Open your mind . . . and your mouth . . . and dont forget the delightfully entertaining stories, preparation tips, growing tips, and all around excellent information about collards. You'll find it hard to put down even after enjoying one of the mouthwatering recipes. This book features the most popular collard greens recipe in the world with Heart Health Recipes, 288 big pages, and 214 remarkable recipes.

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2006

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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
Profile Image for Jill.
Author 16 books32 followers
October 14, 2008
The Collard Patch
by Mary Lou Cheatham
Edition: Paperback

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
A New Cooking Adventure, October 6, 2008

The Collard Patch
By Mary Lou Cheatham
Paul Elliott

What a great idea for a cookbook, with stories and recipes. This is a beautifully written book, with details on growing, and preparing collard greens.

I live in Utah. I didn't even know collard greens from spinach, kale or turnip greens. I looked for frozen collards, with no luck. Next, I looked for the fresh variety, still no luck. I did find some at the Whole Foods store. I later saw collard greens at Walmart, as well. They looked fairly sturdy, compared to other limp varieties of greens.

I have been reading the stories in the cookbook each night. Finally, on Saturday I began my chopping and freezing. It is very simple to remove the inner tough stem, and twist like a cigar. Then you slice at an angle and chop each section. Quick and easy.

Did you know there are two ways to soften the collard greens? One is by freezing, and the other is by adding a pinch of baking soda.

On Saturday, I picked out four recipes: Cherry Chocolate Cake, Apple Collard Raisin Pie, French Onion Collard Soup, and Collard Corn. The cake, although you need to note the missing ingredient, cherry pie filling, is a supper tasty and moist cake. Beware, it would be a very good idea to have company over. As a family of three, now, we ate and ate on the cake. Now it's time for some exercise. I walked the dog all over town, trying to fit back into my clothes.

The Collards Corn went very well with the Lasagna, I made for dinner tonight. I admit that I cut the garlic in half. My husband isn't a big fan of garlic. I thought this dish was great and very tasty, as a side dish.

The French Onion Collard soup is great. I embellished it, a little, by adding two packs of onion soup mix to the four cups of water. I also added two whole onions, to get the real onion texture. I added the chopped collard greens on top of each cup of hot soup, browned the French bread rounds with a little butter, and added cheese, mine was mozzarella. It tasted just like Mimi's. Do they have Mimi's in the south?

Tomorrow, I will make the Apple Raisin Collard Pie, with the remaining 5 cups of collards, in my freezer. It sounds good, as well. I don't know why I picked two deserts. I guess I was just curious. If I like the desserts, I will surely like the collards. I remember the time my mom made cookies out of mashed potatoes. They were good, with a strange texture. Now that I have tried collard greens, I will try to keep some in the freezer, for any future taste treats.

Jill Ammon Vanderwood
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Profile Image for Steven Peterson.
Author 19 books329 followers
May 3, 2009
This is an absolutely quirky--and fascinating--book. It combines elements of a cookbook (with Mary Lou Cheatham organizing this, using her own and others' recipes) with stories of "collard nation" by Paul Elliott with "collard essentials" (organized as a series of chapters, including discussion of how to clean collards and how to cook "perfect collards").

However, it is the recipes that are at the heart of any cookbook. Let's take a look at a few that I find interesting enough to consider making for myself.

"Awesome collard greens." On page 33, we see a recipe by Willie Crawford that is termed "the world's most famous written collards recipe." Ingredients: 2-3 medium smoked ham hocks, 5 pounds of collards, and some salt. Put the ham into lots of water and boil until the ham hocks look like they're falling apart. Then, clean and chop up the collards. Add the collards to the pot and cook until they are tender. Until I read the recipe, I thought it unlikely that I'd ever try it. Now, I think I'll give this a shot.

And there are other recipes that sounds pretty good to me. And I would never have imagined that I'd be considering collard recipes! Here are some things that appeal to me: stir-fry with pasta; quick, easy, and tasty pasta salad; French onion collard soup (I love French onion soup and have a nice recipe for it, but this sounds kind of intriguing); collard stew; scrambles; stuffed mushrooms; artichoke and collard dip.

So, what an unlikely sounding cookbook. . . . But between the recipes and the stories and the tips, this really comes together nicely.
Profile Image for Christy.
Author 27 books64 followers
August 23, 2008
One wouldn’t think collards would be such an interesting subject, but this cookbook is filled with plenty of fascinating facts, including a detailed description of this vegetable and its amazing health factors, the best way to grow them, how to treat infestations, how to harvest them, and on to the best way to cook them. All this followed by recipes that look to be not only delicious but nutritional. Included in the book are Southern anecdotes which are entertaining and will be appreciated by all. A valuable cookbook for any kitchen, Southern or not.
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