Bacon chard

If you don't know it already, chard scares me.

It's magical growing powers are, well, magical and it will grow under most conditions as long as it has sun, healthy soil and some means of hydration.

But that's not the only magical thing about chard. No, it also has some magical fibrous properties that lend well to regularity.

I'm sorry. I just don't know how to share that fact delicately, but it's a part of life, so let's just all accept it and move on to how to work more chard into our diets as palatably as possible, shall we?

Bacon chard

Ingredients
About 8 big chard leaves, sliced into ribbons
3-4 strips of country bacon, chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne pepper

To make
Over medium-high heat, brown your chopped bacon with a little oil until it's toasty.

Then dump in your chard. It will cover the pan in a scary way, but that's OK. As it heats it will wilt and then you can turn it with your tongs.

Add salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste and once the whole mess of chard is wilted (about 4 minutes), transfer to a plate and serve warm.

Good eating, my regular friends. 

Chard gratin dip

In my ongoing battle with the chard, I've learned a few tricks.

Like how to make one giant dish with one giant pile of chard that can then serve two purposes. 

This is helpful when cooking for one or two people who don't want to eat six servings of one dish in one meal but can be talked into finishing it if it's dressed up differently later.

Let me explain.

Chard gratin
Adapted from Serving up the Harvest by Andrea Chesman

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Chard gratin dip

Chard gratin

2 lbs chard leaves (12-16 stems w/ leaves)

2 cups milk

1 onion halved/sliced

1 cup grated Gruyere
4 T butter
1/4 cup flour

1/4 cup bread crumbs
Sea salt
Black pepper

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. 

Boil some seasalty water and add your chopped stems.

Give it a few minutes and add your ribboned leaves.

Then drain your chard after a few minutes and preheat the oven to 350.

See how small all that chard got? That's the best.

Grease a 9x13 glass dish.

 
In a saucepan, melt the butter and then add your onion to cook until it's soft. Whisk in your flour until it's all pasty. Add your milk and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat and add your cheese. Now add salt and pepper until it tastes the way you like it. Add your chard and stir.

Now scoop all that into your dish, cover it with breadcrumbs and bake for about half hour or until the breadcrumbs start to brown.

Serve with some grilled fish or other delicious main dish item of your own choosing.

And later, when you have 2+ servings left over, get some bagel chips or fresh bread and serve them up as dippers for the Chard gratin dip you'll have once you reheat the leftovers in a ramekin with a new layer of breadcrumbs on top.

Good eating.

The Best Sauce Ever. Yep.

I know it sounds like big talk - just having one tomato sauce recipe for every purpose, but I tell you, it's just that good. In fact, it's known in my house as The Best Sauce Ever. Yep. and I believe that it is. 

I've used this sauce to toss with pasta, gnocchi, in lasagna, in eggplant Parmesan, over ravioli, mixed with chopped greens like chard and kale, simmered with some meatballs and - I won't lie to you - I've even just eaten it with a spoon.

For the past five years I have loved no other tomato sauce and life has been great.

I dare you to make this sauce with your homegrown tomatoes and then try to tell me it's not the tastiest tomato sauce you've ever eaten. 

I DOUBLE DARE YOU.

The Best Sauce Ever. Yep.

Ingredients:
4-5 large ripe fresh garden tomatoes, sliced into 1" rounds
4 good sized fresh basil leaves
1 head of garlic, top chopped off
1/3 cup red wine (I usually use a Cabernet)
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

To make:
Preheat oven to 450.

Cover a rimmed baking sheet with foil and then coat the foil with some olive oil. 

Place the prepped garlic head on another piece of foil and drizzle some oil on the top cut end of the garlic and add a bit of salt. Wrap the foil around it into a nice package. Put it in the middle of the baking sheet.

Place your tomato rounds in a single layer on the baking sheet around the garlic. Drizzle all the tomatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Roast it all into the oven for 30 minutes.

That blackness is what you want to see when you take the tomatoes out of the oven.

Pull out the food processor and add all the tomatoes (they'll be a bit charred and maybe a little grabby when trying to peel them from the foil - try hard). Unwrap the garlic and squeeze in the cloves (they'll be like paste - it's cool). Add the wine, basil and salt/pepper as you like it.

Puree the whole mess until it's one even consistency and no giant basil bits are jamming around in there.

Like I said before, you can toss it with some pasta, stew it with some meatballs, add a bit of cream and serve over gnocchi - seriously, whatever. Or just eat it out of the Cuisinart with your spoon because it's so good you won't care that you just ate sauce for dinner while standing in the kitchen.

BBQ pork loin stuffed with chard

As is a theme in much of my cooking with chard, I tend to mask its ever presence with meat of some kind.

Usually pork.

This time I used pork.

Big surprise!

This is a recipe adapted from the fine couple over at White on Rice and you should really check them out, too, because they have a lot of amazing recipes and silliness.

BBQ Pork Loin Stuffed w/ Swiss Chard
Adapted from the pages of White on Rice Couple

Serves 3

Ingredients
3 Boneless Pork Loin Chops (or similar cut (@ 1″ thick). Ask your butcher to slice pockets into the chops for you. They'll do a better job with their fancy sharp knives and skills.

Marinade Ingredients:
2 T Garlic (crushed)
½ T Sugar
½ t Salt
1 t Ground cumin
2 T Soy sauce
1 t Sesame oil
½ cup Grapeseed oil

Stuffing Ingredients:

7 Large chard leaves, ribboned and stems removed
2-3 cloves Garlic, crushed
2 Shallots, diced
1 cup Pineapple, diced
1 T Grapeseed oil
1 T Sesame oil
Sea salt
Fresh cracked black pepper

To make

Preheat BBQ for direct grilling

Combine marinade ingredients, then marinade pork for 30 min.

Bring pot of water to boil, add sea salt to taste, then boil swiss chard for 3-5 minutes. Drain, place in a ice bath until cool, then drain again. Squeeze out the excess water.

Heat grapeseed oil in pan over medium-high heat, add garlic and shallots and sauté for 1-2 minutes. Add chard and sesame oil, sauté for another minute or so, then add the pineapple. Remove from heat and season with sea salt and pepper. Let it cool a bit.

Remove pork from marinade. Stuff with chard mixture, then place on a pre-heated BBQ. Grill for about 4-5 minutes on each side, controlling BBQ heat so it isn’t scorchingly hot. Remove from the grill & eat with grilled corn on the cob and a giant salad from your garden greens that are running amok.

Good eating, chard lovers and chard fearful alike.

Chard lasagna

Are you scared of chard?

No?

Then perhaps you aren't growing it right now.

That stuff scared me the first time I grew it because it would. not. stop. growing.

It's like postal service of vegetables. Rain, sleet, snow, whatever - it keeps right on delivering the PennySaver even though you've never once looked at it.

The good news is that, unlike the PennySaver, you can tame your chard with a few swift moves.

In this case, lasagna-type moves.

Chard lasagna

Adapted from Lasagna with Chard, tomato sauce and ricotta, NYTimes.com

Ingredients
1 recipe of The Best Tomato Sauce Ever. Yep.
1 generous bunch of Swiss chard (1 1/2 lbs)
Salt
6 lasagna noodles

Extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan

1 T chopped fresh herbs (oregano's nice)

To make 

Preheat the oven to 425. 

First, start your tomato sauce.

 
While the tomatoes for your sauce are roasting in the oven boil some seasalty water and, after cutting the big stalks off of your chard and rinsing the leaves in cold water, dunk your full chard leaves in the boiling water for 1 minute. Then take those leaves intact (I find my Oxo tongs do the best job here) and dunk them in icy water.

Some fancy people refer to this process as blanching, but I'm not fancy, so let's just call it dunking.

Then you'll want to squeeze out all this water by stacking those leaves into a neat pile, placing them on one end of an unrolled tea towel and rolling them up while squeezing.

Unroll the towel and take your little chard cigar over to the cutting board for ribboning. The towel can then go into the wash or your kitchen laundry hamper if you have it.

Now you can ribbon slice your funny chard cigar.

Once you're done making the tomato sauce, pour the sauce into a good sized bowl and, with your tongs, toss your sauce with all that ribboned chard.

Then compile it as such:
Coat the bottom of an 8x8 pan with a bit of the sauce mixture
Then one layer of uncooked lasagna noodles
Then ricotta
Then sauce mixture
Then some shredded Parmesan
Repeat once more and finish with noodle, ricotta, sauce, Parmesan
Sprinkle some salt and oregano on top

Wrap the whole deal with foil and bake in the oven for about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool, uncovered, for about 5 minutes or until it cools below MOLTEN LAVA temps. Cut and serve with a salad.

Good eating and bye bye chard.