Citrus Collards and Chickpeas (& Tips for Moving to Houston)

And then there were three.

Three Canadians in Houston!

One of my friends recently moved here and I could not be more thrilled.

After massive hugs and giggles, Rob and I had to pass on our new-found Texan/American wisdom:

1. Beware of the drivers and HUGE potholes. Houston’s roads are pretty atrocious (broken roads explained here)

2. Beware of the new bugs here

3. Get used to the heat, quickly. Stay indoors. Use the air conditioner. Do not go outside between 9am and 5pm. 😉

4. Get used to the sporadic rain. In Houston, it will rain like crazy for half an hour, then stop and dry up within another hour. I shudder to think what it will be like when a hurricane hits.

5. Locate your closest recycling depot, fastest DMV, nicest bank

6. Speaking of DMV, learn how to import a Canadian car. It needs a special anti-theft check done once a week during a 30 minute window. Yikes!

7. Lament about the terrible cell phone reception, even within our own home

8. Your SSN is very important. You need it to get paid (and open a bank account). When you are ready to get your SSN (do it ASAP, but after they resume working), show up an hour before they open. Even then, there will still be thirty people ahead of you, possibly more since they have been on shutdown

9. Saturday mail. Yes, they deliver mail on Saturdays!

10. Insurance, insurance, insurance… medical, home/rental, car, etc. Credit card? Well, we have yet to get one from a US bank.

… and many more that I have forgotten or have yet to learn

Of course, we also shared our tips for our favourite grocery stores. We tried to explain the awesomeness of Trader Joe’ but we could see it was lost in translation. Thus, we took matters into our own hands. We brought her for a personalized tour of our favourite eats. Cheap pantry staples, beer, almond milk, vegan ice cream, etc… now we’re talking!

Inspired by talking all things local, I went Southern with my meal, too. Similar to my last Southern beans and greens saute, this is a dish that is more than the sum of its parts. The original recipe was just for the citrus collards, but I swapped things around: dates instead of raisins (and less of them) along with chickpeas to make this a complete meal. Collards are local to the Southern United States, especially during the fall, and are best during the winter. I love collards in all of its forms, but it can be bitter if cooked poorly. This dish uses a few techniques to coax the collards into sweet submission.

First of all, this dish a bit more fiddly than a throw-into-the-pan stir fry. The collards are boiled, blanched and dried. This prevents the need to cook them into oblivion. Next, a quick saute is enough to infuse the greens with the sweetness to offset the collards’ astringency. Fresh orange juice and dates provide a great flavour, too. And then I threw in the chickpeas.

It is funny how our taste buds work. We thought this dish was fabulous. It exceeded my expectations. And then Rob said it: it smelled like bacon. The dish had a depth of flavour that was definitely was reminiscent of bacon even though we did not use liquid smoke nor maple syrup. It must be something about sweet, chewy things that reminds us of bacon. In this case, I think it was the caramel undertones from the pan-roasted dates.

Do you have any other tips for moving to the US? Do you feel like your plant-based meals taste like bacon, too?

This is my submission to this month’s Random Recipe for local ingredients, to this month’s Shop Local Challenge and Virtual Vegan Linky Potluck.

Citrus Collards and Chickpeas
Adapted from Vegan Soul Kitchen (original recipe here)

1 large bunch collards, stemmed and thinly sliced (300g prepped)
1 tsp coconut oil
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup dates, pitted and chopped
1/3 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed if possible
1.5 cups cooked chickpeas, rinsed and drained if canned
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

1. In a large pot, bring 3 quarts of salted water to a boil. Add collards and simmer, uncovered, for 8-10 minutes, until soft. Meanwhile, prepare your ice water bath. Once the collards are finished, drain them and place in the ice water bath to stop their cooking. Squeeze dry and fluff apart.

2. In a large non-stick pan/wok, heat oil. Add garlic and saute until fragrant, around 2 minutes. Add dates and chilled collards. Saute for 1-2 minutes, separating the strands of collards. Add orange juice, salt and chickpeas and heat until warm through, but do not overcook. Season to taste.

Serves 3.