Turnip greens are a staple of many a Southern’s life.

But they aren’t a staple of mine. Don’t like them at all! No lectures please. I understand how nutritionally wonderful they are. Just don’t like how they taste.

The bag full of turnip greens in the sink being washed.

I can hear you now, wondering WHY I’m cooking them if I dislike them. We make choices in our lives. I dislike them less than I love my sweet Jim. He was given a bag full of them by a co-worker of his yesterday. I agreed to fix them for him. It was as simple as that.

I have now fixed them 2 times in one–my first time & my last time. The actual cooking is easy & straight forward. The prep work getting them ready to cook is the killer. They have to be soaked & washed multiple times to get all of the dirt & grit off of them. Then you take a knife and cut the stems & the thick part of the vein off of the leaves. After I had prepared almost half of the greens, Jim & I agreed that that was enough to fix. He’s the only one that eats turnip greens at our house so didn’t see the sense in fixing all of them. In fact, Jim said that as labor intensive as it was, he offered to just forget about them. At this point, I had decided it’s a challenge & I wanted to cook them for once in my life.

Did some research on the internet & there were several suggestions. Basically, the suggestions are to cook them with salt pork or ham hocks. I had neither on hand, but did have some bacon grease so I went with the suggestion of seasoning them with bacon grease.

They

Added them to a large pot with about 2 cups of water. Cooked them for approximately 30 minutes. Added some salt & bacon grease to them & they were finished. Told you it was simple to cook them. Jim said they were excellent & he did seem to enjoy eating them.

However, we were both agreed that in the future when he wanted them, I would pick up some cans from Bi-lo. Unless, of course, he had some that his mother had canned on hand. We also agreed that he had not properly thanked her for the home-canned turnip greens she had sent him. If anything was a labor of love, it was the time & effort she had to have put forth in canning those greens.

After cooking, they don't even cover the bottom of the pot.

Tags: bacon grease, cook, cooking, Jim, turnip greens