Greens, eggs and sausage

At the Staunton-Augusta Farmers Market, I bought some fat bags of creasey, a wonderful spring vegetable I think of almost as a yearly tonic. Creasey always makes me remember Aunt Lucy Barlow, now long gone. In the tiny Southside community of Sugar Hill, Aunt Lucy began her search for creasey as soon as she could see it coming up in late February in patches of unplowed ground. It grew beneath the melting orange snow, stained by the heavy clay under the white sand that gives the rural crossroads its name.  I’d never seen this dry land cousin to watercress until I married into Lucy’s Campbell County family.  With its tiny leaves and rosette structure - kind of like dandelion greens except with delicate, round leaves – the creasey plants looked so much like weeds that I was surprised when Lucy brought a washbasin full into the kitchen to simmer with bacon for an April meal.  I grew to love the greens for their spicy taste,  like watercress, only sharper.  Lucy would chop them before and after cooking, drain them and heap them on a huge platter, surrounded with cooked and peeled hardboiled eggs. Chopped green onions and vinegar were passed with this meal, a complete spring dinner for when the backyard hens were laying. 

It was chilly, with a misting rain Saturday, and I wanted a hot soup. I took the creasey from Elk Run Farm some of the bulk sausage from Heartland Harvest Farm and some green onions and cooked everything together for a wonderful soup, from Simply in Season, available from Ten Thousand Villages. 

Sausage and Greens Soup

1/2 pound bulk sausage, browned in a large pot.

1 cup minced green onions

4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1 cup diced and peeled raw potatoes

salt and pepper to taste

1 1/2 cups evaporated milk

3 cups creasey (or any wild or garden greens), cleaned well and chopped

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Brown the sausage, remove from pan. Drain all drippings except for enough to saute the onions. Cook onions until soft and clear. Return the crumbled sausage to the pot. Add the stock, bring to a boil, lower heat and smmer until the potato pieces are soft.  Add the milk and greens and simmer until the greens are soft, about ten minutes. Garnish with grated Parmesan.  There’s another version using cooked ham and ham broth in place of the sausage and chicken stock. Proceed as with the other recipe.