Whaddya know, my garden is actually producing something this year!  And that something is swiss chard....and a lot of it.  I realized that although I have one or two recipes that use a little swiss chard, I don't have nearly enough to cover all of the chard that is growing in my garden.  So, anyone have any good recipes for chard?

My mom used to make heavenly creamed chard (like creamed spinach but so much better!) served over homemade croutons with a hardboiled egg on top. That would be dinner. 

 

I also like indian palak panir or saag made with chard.  That is kind of like a creamed spinach, but less cream sauce and more spice.

 

 

I like chard probably the best of all the greens.

Here's a recipe for greens that I've tried before which uses smoked turkey rather than pork - a lot less fat!

 

 

Smothered Greens

 

3 C water

1/4 lb smoked turkey breast, skinless

1 Tbsp fresh hot pepper, chopped

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp cloves, ground

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp thyme

1 stalk scallion, chopped

1 tsp ginger, ground

1/4 C onion, chopped

2 lb greens (mustard, turnip, collard, kale, or mixture)

 

1. Place all ingredients except greens into large saucepan and bring to boil.

2. Prepare greens by washing thoroughly and removing stems.

3. Tear or slice leaves into bite-size pieces.

4. Add greens to turkey stock. Cook for 20–30 minutes until tender.

 

Yield: 5 servings

Serving size: 1 cup

Each serving provides:

Calories: 80

Total fat: 2 g

Saturated fat: less than 1 g

Cholesterol: 16 mg

Sodium: 378 mg

Total fiber: 4 g

Protein: 9 g

Carbohydrates: 9 g

Potassium: 472 mg

This stuff can replace bacon, ham or smoked any meat.

 

It. Is. Awesome!

 I've heard you can make a decent bacon replacement with shiitake mushrooms and Braggs amino acids.

It is spectacular in beans, greens and on fresh tomatoes.

Oh my.

Mmm, that does sound good.

 

Snuck chard into dinner for three nights in a row now.  We're spending the weekend camping with DH's family--guess what I'm bringing???  It's a good thing I got lots of chard out of my garden because everything else has suffered from the lack of sunshine and ridiculous amount of rain VT has received this summer.  It's nearly August and I've just now managed to get  tomatoes started (the largest is now the size of a golf ball).  I thought squash would grow under pretty much any condition but nope, none of them even got big enough to produce flowers, yikes. 

 I will mail you squash.