"swiss chard" news and stories

Put a little green in your chili. No, not green peppers but greens like Swiss chard. Rich, succulent chard adds texture, deep flavor, and, a healthy dose of Vitamins A and C to the mix. This easy recipe comes from blogger veggiefrog, who also piles on the white beans and garlic. (See yesterday's post for more on chili,)

Swiss chard comes in a rainbow of varieties and colors, and a couple of my favorites are 'Rhubarb' and 'Ruby Red'. Its perfect in its simplest form, braised with olive oil and garlic, as in this recipe from Kitchen Daily contributor Alexis Touchet. And if you want to include it in an absolutely delicious one-dish dinner, try contributor Ruth Cousineau's Nutty Swiss Chard, Squash, and Cannelini Bake.

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If layered dishes like eggs benedict are your idea of bliss but Canadian bacon and hollandaise sauce give you pause, this garlicky chard and creamy polenta combo may be the answer to your breakfast prayers. Especially if you start with farm-fresh eggs, as blogger patentandthepantry did here. The yolk of an egg you buy from a farmer on the day it's laid is usually sunflower yellow and much more intensely flavored than those of conventional eggs from the market.

Fans of polenta with eggs might like them in a mustard sauce, as in this recipe. And if you prefer your polenta without the eggs, Curtis Stone offers a rich goat's-milk cheese and Parmesan recipe at Kitchen Daily.

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Swiss Chard is one of my favorite vegetables. Half leafy green and half fibrous crunch, it has a multitude of uses. I particularly like to saute the stems with carrots, onions and carrots when I'm making soup and then stir the shredded greens into broth just before serving. It's a great veggie for beginning gardeners, because it grows abundantly, giving you a whole lot of return on a small amount of investment. It's also a very lovely looking veggie, a feature demonstrated by the picture you see up there.

Thanks Nina, for sharing your Swiss Chard picture with us!

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This Saturday, I was struck by the gorgeous vibrant red roots and shiny green leaves of the Swiss chard being sold at the farmer's market in Grand Army Plaza, in Brooklyn. Surprisingly, I never cooked Swiss chard before. Nevertheless, I left the market determined to eat some. When I got home, I steamed the chard and served it with butter and grey sea salt. The aroma from the kitchen made me feel as though I was lying outside on the ground of a vegetable garden.

For some reason, I thought that spinach and chard were so similar that it did not make a difference which one I'd choose to cook. Interestingly, by the nineteenth century, seed catalog publishers used the word Swiss to distinguish chard from French spinach varieties. If the chard is fresh and young, it can be eaten raw in salads. Since mature chard leaves and stalks become increasingly bitter, they're typically cooked or sauteed so that the bitterness fades.

Below are 8 recipes for Swiss chard:

1. Baked pork chops with Swiss chard
2. Chard with orange and bacon
3. Swiss chard soufflé
4. Crispy Swiss chard cakes with mascarpone-creamed spinach
5. Lamb stew with Swiss chard and garlic-parsley toasts
6. Swiss-Chard, potato, and chickpea stew
7. Butternut squash gnocchi with duck confit and Swiss chard
8. Swiss chard and herb tart

After a four-and-a-half month hiatus, Slashfood in the Kitchen is back! (I'm sure that you have leaped out of your seat and are cheering upon reading this). This time Scott and I make a quick weeknight dinner that is easy to throw together, tastes pretty darn good and is relatively healthy to boot. We start out with an easy pasta dish much like the ones so many of us grew up eating (pasta, bell peppers, onions, ground beef and tomatoes) and finish things off with some sauteed Swiss Chard (one of the quickest cooking veggies around). Best part of it was that it made enough for two nights' worth of dinner (if you have more than two people in your household, your mileage will vary).

We'd like to thank Mastercard for sponsoring Slashfood in the Kitchen. They'd like us to remind you that whether you're an art-lover, a traveler, or a connoisseur of fine dining, search and you could win priceless prizes beyond compare.

And, if you missed them, you should check out the first two episodes we made last fall. You know you want to learn to roast brussels sprouts and make apple sauce!

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