Garden Gone Wild

While I was out of town our garden, with James' faithful watering, went wild. It is positively overflowing with collard greens, chard and kale. Today was a big harvest day and dinner just had to be based on our backyard produce.
The collards were a little bigger (and probably tougher) than I generally like, so I figured a good long stewing period would help tenderize them. I started a pot with olive oil, garlic and chopped onions and added in the just washed (and still a little wet) collards. I covered that pot and let the greens steam tender a bit (about 8 minutes). Then I tossed in a can of crushed tomatoes (from last year's garden), a little water,  a good sized splash (or more like a glass) of white wine, crushed chili peppers, a couple dashes of hot sauce, and because our collards were a little bitter, a splash of balsamic vinegar. I brought that up to a bubble and added in some sliced fingerling potatoes. When the potatoes were tender we had flavorful, spicy collards ready to ladle over fluffy brown rice.
I started out to make a vegetarian stew but mid way through thought maybe those collards -- as they often do -- could use a little crispy, fatty pork. I pan-fried a link of hot Italian sausage to top James' almost vegetarian dinner.