Here’s another fast vegetable dish.  It’s worth cooking a big  pot of beans and keeping pint-sized containers of them in the freezer for later use.   Then when you decide to make this recipe, you can thaw a container in the fridge the night before.  You could add some chopped chicken to this recipe.  I served it with a salad and boiled eggs for a quick meal.  If you want some starch in your meal, toast some Food For Life organic sprouted corn tortillas to eat with this collard dish.

A note on cooking beans:     Be sure to soak the beans overnight in plenty of water..  Rinse them well in the morning and put them in a big cooking pot. Cover the beans with plenty of water (at least a couple of inches over the beans) and add a bay leaf.  Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to  low-medium to keep the beans gently boiling.  Keep a lid on the pot but leave it open a crack.  Depending on how hard your water is the beans may take from 4 to 8 hours to cook thoroughly until soft.  (Be sure to replenish the water so that beans are covered by water by a couple of inches.  If you have hard water I suggest using distilled water for cooking–I have used well water that was so hard the beans never cooked!  I learned this the hard way.) Just give them a stir every hour or so and add more water if you need to.  Make sure to cook until you are able to  mash a few of the beans easily with a fork– they are less likely to cause intestinal gas when well cooked .  Also, do not use the cooking water–it contains compounds from the beans which also contribute to gas.  Some recipes suggest using the cooking water–do not do this!  One final note on reducing the likelihood of getting gas from eating beans–dilute the beans in any dish you are making with plenty of vegetables.  This recipe is a good example of this idea.

Serves 2

2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 very small  or 1 medium zucchini, spiralized (or chopped if you don’t have a vegetable spiralizer)

2 cups of finely chopped collard greens

1/2 sweet red pepper,  chopped

1 cup cooked garbanzo beans (also called chick peas)

1 Tbsp. organic wheat-free tamari

salt and pepper

a pinch of cayenne (optional)

Briefly saute garlic in olive oil in a large skillet on medium heat until just starting to sizzle(don’t allow the garlic to brown).  Add the collard greens and stir very well.  Add 1 Tbsp. of water (or chicken or vegetable stock if you have it).  Cover but stir every few minutes.  Once the collards are tender (about 5 minutes) add the chick peas.  If you are going to add some cooked chicken, do it now.  Stir and cover again for a few minutes to heat beans through.  Add the red pepper and stir  well.  After a minute, add the zucchini and stir well again.  At this point be careful not to overcook the red pepper and zucchini–you just want to heat them through but keep them crisp (not limp!).  Add tamari and salt and pepper to taste.  Serve immediately (have everything else ready!).