Week 14 Box 14: Spicy Fun Arugala

Because of the way my day job works we are getting into the heavy season at work. Which means my posts are going to start condensing because I don't have nearly as much time to work on them as I would like too. Sorry folks. I'm going to try to get better at spacing them out, maybe get on a regular schedule like The Husband recommends. We shall see. Anyway last week The Box Contained the following:

• Red Potatoes
• Many tomatoes of the red and heirloom variety
• Yellow Onions
• Celery
• Concord Grapes
• and Two Bunches of Arugula

Since, of course, Arugula is one of my favorite greens due to it's spicy fun flavor and I had an excess of tomatoes I went looking for a good old fashioned quick pasta recipe for a Tuesday night dinner.

When Life Gives You Collard Greens...

Just add bacon! or at least that's what The Google Machine told me, and the almighty Mark Bittman, and that wonderful convicted felon Martha Stewart, and the old faithful Joy of Cooking. Apparently, Collard Greens are so horrific and awful that the only way to consume them is sauteed with enough bacon to drown out the flavor. 

Now I disagree. I like Collard Greens. Whole Foods makes an excellent ready-to-eat Collard Green "side" that I used to eat a big pint of for lunch when I found myself with one of those "never ending" days of school where I never left campus for longer than 15 minutes from 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. Granted, it had bacon in it, but bacon was the supporting actor in the dish and those wonderful bitter greens defiantly took the lead.

However, the one time I brought home that delicious mix of Collards, vinegar, crushed hot pepper and bacon to The Husband (while he was still The Boyfriend) his reaction was lacking the pleasure I found in the dish. I think he probably thought I was trying to poison him.

So when the Collard Greens showed up in The Box this week, I was excited to try and find a non-traditional recipe that did them justice while The Husband, on the other hand wanted to drown it with bacon fat and call it a day. 

Fortunately (after about 7 pages of search results in) I found THIS recipe which met the happy compromise of being different from the Collard Green consensus, but still had bacon. Pleased with my discovery, I set about prepping and modifying the recipe to fit my needs.