One of the things that I have most liked about this cooking challenge is that it has forced me to stretch my comfort zone. When I was a little girl, my mother made sautéed greens many times for us. Since she had grown up on a farm, she knew which greens would taste good and be safe to eat. I keep looking for them but none of those that I grew up with are available in the grocery stores. Of course, now we eat a variety of salad greens such as romaine, arugula, spinach, raddichio and endive, but I haven’t added sautéed greens into our diets. After trying this dish, Michael insists that we change that.

This dish uses savoy cabbage, spinach and a bitter green. I did have to go online to figure out what type of greens qualified as bitter. My grocery store had turnip and mustard, so I bought both. Since the mustard greens would cook as quickly as the spinach I chose to use them. The savoy cabbage is cooked in a large pot of water for about 15 minutes until it is tender. The spinach and mustard greens were cooked quickly with just a little water and lots of salt. The greens are then chopped and sautéed in olive oil with garlic.

Michael was at work while I was cooking and when he came home, the first thing that he said was that it smelled wonderful. You’ve got to love a guy who thinks that garlic and cabbage are the best smells in the world! Anyway, we sat down to eat and he started talking about when he was a kid. He said that back then he hated this dish and couldn’t understand how all of the adults could like it so much. Well now he understands. He practically licked the platter clean.