Cooking greens is so tough, right? First you cook some bacon or just heat some oil. Then you either have to either sauté the greens fast or simmer them slowly. I’ve been wanting to add some veggies into my diet like collards, turnip greens, mustard greens, or kale.  And with access to an urban garden or a community garden, I could possibly get some broccoli greens or brussel sprout greens. There are many delicious ways to prepare greens which I would do while entertaining, but sometimes I just want to toss them into something and press a button.

Wait a second, I can totally do that with a rice cooker! Now thinking back, there was a Pot O’Greens episode on Good Eats. If I skip the turkey leg, and use the rice cooker to simmer the stuff, I could make some tasty greens. I could even toss some hard veggies on top like potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, mirlitons, beets, or rutabagas. Maybe even some broccoli, zucchini, or squash.

That was what I thought of before I first did it. This is the 4th or 5th time I’ve cooked greens this way, and it’s turned out pretty well. This time I made kale, sweet potato, turnip, and mirliton. 

First I cut the stems off of the kale.

Then I rinsed the kale in some water.

I wanted some turnips, so i peeled some.

And cubed them. That ugly thing over there is a mirliton. And they will get even uglier. They’re actually quite delicious. Some places call them chayotes, others call them vegetable pears, but here in New Orleans they’re called mirlitons.

They’re filled with a big skinny seed that kinda seperates it down the middle of the vegetable.

That’s the one, best way to do it is to slice it in have and carve it out. You actually don’t have to cut off the skin, but I didn’t feel like eating it.

After I sliced the mirliton into fry shapes, I went onto the sweet potato.

Then I tossed in the kale into the pan and loaded the other veggies on top.

I made the mirlitons into fry shapes so that I could tell them apart from the turnips.

I then added 4 cups of water since I had a large bunch of kale (I’m guessing ~2lbs).

I do about 2 cups per pound of greens. Always best to go on the upper side of that too. You don’t want to run out of water, and it doesn’t hurt to do a little bit more.

I added 1/2 cup of vinegar to cut out the weird taste that greens have.

Earlier I did a 1/4 of a cup for a pound of turnip greens and it turned out well, so I used a 1/2 a cup of apple cider vinegar for the kale, but it was a bit on the vinegary side.

Tossed in some salt.

And some sugar.

Worried about putting in all the salt and sugar? I’m not really worried. Most of that will go out in the liquid when I drain it. Only some will seep into the food. I wouldn’t really ingest much of the sugar and salt.

Also, a tablespoon of sugar is also like 13 grams of a sugar. You get 39 grams of sugar in a can of coke. Can you really say that you’re cutting back on sugar if you drink a coke, but didn’t add the couple grams of sugar? I think not.

Now I could mix it up, but why? It’s all going to go into the liquid after some evaporation then condensation. I don’t see much difference if I just let science do my work for me. Plus I’m going for a quick and easy method. That’s just an extra step that I don’t need to do.

So I cook it in the rice cooker for an hour. Or basically until everything can be poked by a fork and taste alright.

Don’t have one of these sweet Japanese rice cookers? I’m sure the American rice cookers will do alright. They basically do the same thing, make water boil and then let it simmer.

I then strained out the juices and I was done.

So the amount of work is:

• a couple of easy to clean dishes
• 5 minutes of cutting and pouring
• a very tough button pressing
• an even tougher straining job

The amount of food is either:

• 2 different sides for 4 meals
• 2 meals for a vegetarian or vegan (if you use vegan sugar)

I like to use this method of cooking greens because it so fast and easy. I can also through in extra stuff, and I have food for days.

Also, greens are pretty easy to grow in a vegetable garden, if you can keep pest off them. If you have access to a garden area, they’ll make a very cheap meal.