A typical technique for cooking leafy green vegetables is to put a small amount of oil in the bottom of a big soup pot. Brown garlic in the oil, and then add the vegetables. Let them cook down, and turn them with a long wooden spoon or tongs. You could do this with any green leafy vegetable – spinach, kale, collard greens, Swiss chard, dandelion greens, etc. Any of these can be cooked with this technique. For leafy vegetables that have a stem, like Swiss chard and beet greens, use the stem. They are delicious.

On TV, some chefs blanch the greens first in boiling water. Then, they cool off the greens quickly by plunging them into a bowl of ice water for a minute. The greens are removed from the ice water, drained for a minute on paper towels. Then, the chef would proceed with the garlic and olive oil sauté. This is absolutely unnecessary. It is an extra step, a waste of time, and makes extra dirty dishes and pots to wash. You can cook the fresh greens directly in the oil without wasting time and energy with the blanching step.

Any leafy vegetable is a pain to clean. Fill your sink (or a big pot) with clean cold water. Lay the greens on top of the water for a few minutes. Go do something else. Come back to lift the greens out of the water. Feel how much grit in on the bottom of the sink. Refill the sink (or pot) with water and repeat the process until you cannot feel any grit on the bottom of the sink (or pot). Remove the greens from the water and let drain in a large colander. The longer you let them drain, the dryer they will be when you cook them. The greens will give off water when you cook them, so you want them to be relatively dry. You can even roll the greens in an absorbent towel called a “flour sack” towel to absorb the extra water. They store well in the refrigerator for a couple of days rolled in a towel. You can’t use a fluffy towel, like a bath towel. It has to be a smooth towel, or else you will get lint on the food.

The greens do not need to be bone dry before you cook them. Even if they are wet, all that will happen is you will have extra red juice on the bottom of the pot after you cook them. My sister, Patricia, loves to drink this juice. If that is a bit too weird for you, after you remove the greens from the pot, let the extra juice simmer and thicken. Pour the thickened juice over the vegetables and serve.

These leafy green vegetables really cook down to nothing. If you start with 2 big bunches of greens, you’ll end up with just a couple of cups when they cook down.

2 bunches beet greens (or any leafy green vegetable) chopped

4 tablespoons olive oil or enough oil to cover the bottom of a large pot

6 cloves garlic, lightly crushed (not too crushed or else the small bits burn)

Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

Heat the pot with the olive oil, add the garlic. As soon as the garlic starts to turn golden brown, add 1/3 of the greens. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add the second batch and sprinkle with more salt and pepper. You are adding the salt and pepper in between each batch so all of the salt and pepper doesn’t get concentrated in one layer of the vegetables.

Using tongs, or a long wooden spoon, turn the greens. Lift the bottom layer of greens up, allowing the top layers to end up on the bottom. Turn every couple of minutes.

Cook until wilted. Remove the cooked greens from the pot and allow any remaining juice to evaporate and concentrate by continuing to simmer the liquid. Pour the concentrated juice over the greens.

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