Meeting Our New Dinner Guest: Swiss Chard

I freely admit that I am adventurous when it comes to my food. We eat a wide variety of ethnic dishes, and I'm not afraid to play in the kitchen, creating new dishes on the fly. I extend this to my garden. This year, I have growing in my garden three foods I've never even tried before let alone grown before: swiss chard, fennel, and kohlrabi. The fennel is still growing and doesn't look quite like I've seen it at the farmer's market, so we'll let that one go a bit longer. The kohlrabi looks ready but also looks like it can both grow a bit more or sit in my fridge to be used another day. The swiss chard is ripe for the picking, though, so it's on the chopping block for dinner.

I've grown rainbow swiss chard, which has some stunning color to it: bright, glowing yellow, delicate light green, and deep ruby red stems topped by dark green crinkly leaves. This was a filler vegetable for me; I have room around my still young and growing blueberry bushes in the blueberry bed, so I scattered a dollar packet of rainbow swiss chard seeds around the bushes and let them do their thing. Now I'll harvest some of the swiss chard stalks and leaves, leaving the center of the plant so that it will grow more and I can harvest again in a couple weeks. The leaves can be used as a spinach substitute or even a cabbage substitute, and the stalks can be used much like asparagus. Swiss chard is very high in Vitamin A, calcium, and iron, so this is a great vegetable to eat besides lovely and easy to grow.

Now for recipes. I admit, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'll also admit - even though it might shock readers of this who are fans of them - that I'm not a fan of the Food Network show *Down Home with the Neelys.* Sorry, but there it is. Their mannerisms drive me bonkers. Nothing personal, as I'll show by next statement. I often like the vegetable recipes they have, such as their roasted broccoli and cherry tomato recipe, so I'm going to give their swiss chard recipe a whirl around the dinner plate. You can find it, complete with a picture that I find uninspiring, on www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/patrick-and-gina-neely/swiss-chard-recipe/index.html but I'm also including the simple recipe. To go along with this quick swiss chard dish, I'm going to do a couple more tried and true dishes (general rule of thumb here: serve something you know like along with the complete mystery recipe), namely herbed pork chops (rub pork chops with herbs, sear in a hot skillet with a little olive oil, cook until not pink in center), rolls, and fresh tomato slices from the garden. Even if the swiss chard is a flop, we'll still have pork chops, rolls, and tomatoes!

Swiss Chard
2 large bunches Swiss chard (I have no idea how much this is, so I'm going to go with a few big handfuls from my garden)
1 T olive oil
4 strips thick sliced bacon, cut into 1/2" pieces (I'll use pre-cooked bacon from my freezer, crumbled, and some of the strained bacon grease I keep in a jar in the fridge, using 2 T bacon grease in the recipe where it says to saute the onion and garlic in the bacon fat)
1 large onion, sliced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
Slice te stems into 1" pieces and reserve. Stack the chard leaves into a pile. Roll together into a bundle and slice into 1/2" ribbons.
Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the bacon and saute until browned, rendering the fat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until translucent. Add chard stems, cook for 3-4 minutes, then season with salt and pepper.
Begin to add the chard ribbons in batches. Once the chard wilts down, add the next batch, stir occasionally until completely tender, about 5 minutes.
Recipe from *Down Home with the Neelys* from Food Network.