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The nerdy food

11/23/05 09:08 AM

Yuk? Yum?

Each week I receive an organic food box from Planet Organics.

You have an option to go online and choose your produce, but alas, I forgot this week.

What does this mean?

CHARD! CHARD! CHARD!

Chard is like the kid in 3^rd grade that always got picked last for dodge ball. Chard definitely wears glasses and clothes that were cool in the 80’s. Every time I see it on a menu its nutrition nags at me, but I never actually pick it. Well, today I had no choice. I just had chard. I think it was rainbow chard because there were many different colored stems but I really can’t tell the difference in taste. Chard is chard.

So the same day I received this chard in my food box, I also heard this really upsetting story on NPR about the 13% of Americans who can’t say for certain that they will have dinner that night. So now I have chard and guilt. Now I can’t just let this chard rot in my fridge because there are Americans out there who would be ecstatic to have my chard (well, maybe ecstatic isn’t the right word…) So I think, no! I’m not going to let this chard rot in my fridge- I’m going to use chard tonight! I don’t care what I have to do with it. It’s going to taste good. I looked up ‘chard’ on Epicurious.com and I found a Chard, Tomato and Cheese Casserole-Well, anything with cheese sounds good…

Chard, Tomato and Cheese Casserole

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion chopped
3 red bell peppers chopped (I used 2 because they were huge)
8 c chopped chard (they say Swiss, I say whatever)
2 c. grated Monterey Jack
¼ c. Parmesan
2 tomatoes sliced

Preheat oven to 350F. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in pan (they say Dutch oven, I say whatever I pulled out of my cabinet that would look big enough). Sauté onions and peppers about 8 minutes over medium-high.

Before

After!

Mix in chard. Mix in half of cheese. Pour into oiled pan (that’s the other tbsp of oil) layer tomatoes over and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on and cover with foil.

(Crap. I ran out of foil. Oh well…) Bake 40 minutes, then uncover and bake another 10 minutes to brown. (I took it out after 40 because it seemed done)

So was it good? Yeah. I think it was pretty awesome for chard. But it was still chard. I think the browing (maybe with the broiler- you would get a crisp top and some of the liquid would be evicted) would have helped. If you have better things to do with Chard, please respond. Everyone who receives an organic food box will thank you.

And can you guess what my kitchen stank of the next day?

Yup. Chard.

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Comments

First, I have become a very devoted reader of your blog. Second, I will be in Palo Alto over the holiday, and would love to meet up if time permits. Third and finally, here is a good chard recipe: the dish is thanksgiving appropriate as it looks very festive, and there are a bunch of yummy ingredients that balance out the chard. It's more of a rough outline than a precise recipe - if you enjoy it or are interested, feel free to mess around with the proportions/seasonings.

Ingredients:
1 large butternut squash
1 large bunch of chard, leaves cut or torn into bite sized pieces
1 large onion (or 2 medium onions), sliced into 1/4" thick rings
1 cup (give or take) pecans, toasted
1 cup (give or take) dried cranberries
butter (enough to saute onions and lightly coat the other ingredients)
salt/pepper/nutmeg to taste

1. Peel and seed the squash and dice into 1-inch cubes (roughly). Steam or microwave the squash until it is tender.
2. Meanwhile, carmelize the onions in the butter using a large pan. Once the onions are a nice golden brown, add the chard and saute until tender.
3. When the chard is tender, add the cooked squash to the mixture. Add the toasted pecans and the dried cranberries - the nuts and berries should not overwhelm the dish, but they do add color, sweetness, and crunch to the recipe - don't be stingy. Season to taste (I think salt, pepper, and perhaps a little nutmeg would work, but feel free to add spices if you want).

Serve hot or warm.

Posted by: Jenni | November 23, 2005 at 10:59 AM

This recipe is great too-Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Swiss Chard and Pecorino Cheese:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cooking/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_29537,00.html

I do make some substitutions: linguine instead of spaghetti, double tomatoes because I love tomatoes, and I usually leave out the olives and pine nuts. But I normally add some kind of protein (it's great with everything-chicken breast chunks, sausage pieces, even 2 cans of tuna).

Posted by: Kate | November 23, 2005 at 06:42 PM

Re the oil, as a general rule you can half the oil in any non-diet recipe with no loss of anything - the exceptions are roux and crumb toppings but even there you can reduce it by a third or a quarter.

Posted by: Linda | November 26, 2005 at 05:52 PM

My feelers are a little hurt now. I love chard. I grow it in my garden. I eat it all the time. In fact, it is one of my all-time favorites. To hear it slighted hurts me.

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