As most of you already know, our garden overflows with swiss chard.  We planted “Neon Lights” swiss chard in 2010 and to this date have not had to replant or reseed.  Swiss chard is a perennial plant, meaning that it comes up every year on its own or in this case, never stopped producing brilliantly colored stems and leaves with the same beautiful color running thru the veins.

And as we continue to cook and share our swiss chard, we have been asked how and what. It seems that there are many of you that have never tried it before, not because you are afraid to but that you don’t know how to prepare it or know what part is edible.  Well, every bit of it is edible, fresh and cooked; even the larger stalks, they just need to be peeled to remove the tough stringy part.  Swiss chard by itself has a salty, sweet taste to it.  It doesn’t taste like anything else that I can recall.

We are on a constant expedition looking for more ways to cook this wonderful vegetable.  In a recent blog I shared our recipe for creamed swiss chard, this is a GREAT recipe, we fell in love with this recipe and have made it several times since we first prepared it this way.  A very easy way is to sauté it with some butter or flavored olive oil, we like lemon or blood orange.  The stalks are a bit tougher and need to cook low and slow if you want them not crunchy, and the leaves only need a quick turn in the heat so save them for the last few minutes.  We, as a whole, don’t care to “cook” our veggies; we prefer them just warmed so we get the best value nutrition wise and there are lots of nutrients in swiss chard.  Blanching this beautiful vegetable keeps the colors nice and bright and keeps the loss of nutrients to a low level.  Another way to serve them is to sauté some onions and garlic with the stems.  Eating it raw is fun too.  You can add the leaves alone or with stems chopped into a salad.  And you can add the leaves to your sandwich instead or with lettuce. 

As a whole, swiss chard is a not too bitter not too sweet vegetable with loads of nutrition, flavor and color.  So have fun, get creative and keep your eye peeled as we discover new recipes.