I Love Swiss Chard

I know, you’re supposed to love people, not things. But I guess it’s ok to love a thing for its beauty. I bought a couple of bunches of the bright colorful kind of Swiss chard  (also known as silverbeet, perpetual spinach, spinach beet, crab beet, bright lights, seakale beet, and mangold), and when I started to prepare it, I couldn’t get over how gorgeous it was just to look at.

I don’t just love the looks, I love the taste, too. Do you want my recipe? It was about the same thing I do to all leafy greens. I sauteed everything in olive oil with garlic and a hot pepper. Of course there were a few more steps involved, but that’s what I do basically and haven’t gotten tired of it yet.

I saw those colors and ran for my camera.

Just incredible, almost too good to eat.

The first step is to tear the leaves off the stalks.

The stalks get cut into bite size pieces and are sauteed separately since they take longer.

After I wash the stalks and green leaves, I put the green stuff in a salad spinner so my finished product doesn’t  get too watery.

In the meantime, I have sauteed garlic and chili pepper for about one minute in hot olive oil. Now it’s time to  first add the stalks and stir fry until they are soft, about seven (?) minutes.

Then add the leaves. They’ll only take a few minutes. At the end I like to sprinkle toasted sunflower seeds over the top (in the pan on the back burner).

That’s it. I also added kidney beans. Optional. But I like ’em.

p.s. About a year ago I started a food blog, then I deleted it. I thought I wasn’t interested. Too bad, now I wish I had kept it. For the time being and until I discover if I want to do a food blog, I’ll just mix the posts in with bicycle tours, travel, photography and architecture.