Are you looking for a recipe to use swiss chard? I’m not in love with swiss chard yet but I’m trying it.

I’ve been on quite the journey to be a more healthy person, inside and out, over the past 4 years. Lots and lots of credit goes to Jill Tanis and her understanding of food and our relationship to it.

One of the biggest take-aways I had was to eat MORE MORE MORE dark, leafy greens. So I did. I love kale and beet greens – we’ve tried endive, we eat tons of spinach, broccoli rabe (or rapini) and romaine, I’ve taken a gander with dandelion greens and I even juiced rainbow chard a few weeks ago. But eating swiss chard? No, no thank you. Have not had the bug in my pants to try this one until recently.

Here it is. You’ll need: EVOO, salt, pepper, swiss chard, and garlic.

Start by pouring some EVOO into a pan on the stove.

While your oil is heating up, chop up some garlic … and this I love to do. You get to get a little rough with the garlic. Knock it around a bit. Get a little frisky. Get angry, even.

Start with your cloves and a knife that would scare your grandmother.

Take one clove and set your large knife on top of it, like so…

Then SMASH it.

Success. You should be able to peel the skin off the garlic now and set it aside to chop after you’ve smacked around the other cloves of garlic.

When you’ve smashed and skinned all your cloves, chop them up. Be fearless.

Then toss them in the oil.

Add some salt (I forgot about the pepper)

(Missing photos)
Chop your swiss chard, I only used 5 or 6 leaves for this saute. They’re big leaves and being the first time trying it, I wanted to take it easy.

One you’ve removed the vein (stem) from the swiss chard (it’s bitter) chop up the swiss chard and toss it in with the garlic, salt and oil.

It doesn’t take long for it saute down.

Add to your dinner and try it … maybe you’ll enjoy it. Who knows!

We did not. It was a little too bitter for my liking and my very adventurous children spit it out. Can’t blame them. So I tried it again – only the next time I tried it … I added it to soup (substituted the spinach in the recipe for swiss chard and kale). Much better flavoring for me. I’ll keep taking swiss chard out on dates until I find the perfect fit. Why? Because it’s beneficial and worth the leg work to make it a part of our diets.

That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.