Sauteed Swiss Chard - Enjoying Your Greens

Happy St Patrick's Day.  Looking for a fun way to acknowledge this holiday even if you aren't Irish? I've got a couple of ideas for you.

You could always whip up this easy Pot Of Gold cake for dessert fun or create a leprechaun catcher from your recycling bin. In our family the leprechauns usually make a mess of things and turn our milk green!

I'm a big fan of cabbage, but maybe you want to try something a little different and still green for dinner. Swiss chard is an amazing green that's available right now in your grocery. The most common variety you see has brilliant red stalks (but it can come in yellow, white and pink) with dark green leaves. It's loaded with vitamins, minerals and fiber. Eaten raw, it's pretty bitter, but sauteed it's yummy. This is my favorite recipe. And yes, the photo above IS mac and cheese from a box. You gotta have the Blue Box sometimes!

Sauteed Swiss Chard
olive oil
1 bunch of chard, stems trimmed off
1/2 sm onion, diced
1/4 tsp paprika
1/2 c raisins
1/4 c pine nuts, toasted (optional)

First you need to trim the chard. Slice off the large stems and chop the stems up. Slice the leaves into large strips.

In a large skillet or wide bottomed pot with a cover, heat the oil. Add the onion, and chopped chard stalks. Sprinkle the whole lot with the paprika. Cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are translucent (a couple of minutes).

Then add the chard leaves and raisins. This giant pile, will reduce down quickly as the chard cooks. Cover the skillet and let cook for around 6 minutes, stirring a couple of times.

Serve the chard with the pine nuts sprinkled over the top if desired. The mix of the sweet raisin, crunchy pine nuts and delicious chard put this dish in a class by itself.

Green Waffles??

We take every opportunity to celebrate holidays around here (see Super Bear's version of a leprechaun catcher). St Patrick's Day is no except. The kids love having green waffles with their green milk. Such silliness is pretty easy to come by with some food coloring. What will you have for St. Patties Day?

A talented friend of mine is from Ireland and she taught me how to make an authentic Irish meal (with beef cooked in Guinness no less). Judith taught how to make her yummy dinner at the Whole Foods Cooking School, where I volunteer. I am lucky to have this privilege as it means I get to learn directly from the chefs who are teaching. I love my nights there learning to cook as I always learn something new. The school's knife skills class changed the way I use my knives completely. Now I can chop (sort of) like the pros on TV which comes in handy when I'm chopping up strawberries that are in season right now. We eat them by the bushel and then make strawberry freezer jam with them - delicious!

St Patty's Day Fun

Need a fun idea for St Patrick's Day? This cake was one of the easiest I've ever made. A sheet cake frosted green, lucky charms clovers in the left hand corner, Skittles ("taste the rainbow") for the arc, a hollowed out mini cupcake for the pot and chocolate coins for the gold. The hardest part was not eating all of the Skittles!

We also celebrated Saint Patrick's Day with a leprechaun catcher. The kids raided the recycling box and came up with the plan of using a cereal box. Then they made a trap door from another box. Some hard earned money was added to the back to intice the little fellow into the trap. The kids said the leprechaun would think the pipe cleaner was a light switch and pull the door down to close the trap! It's incredible to me what kids can do with the a little trash and their imagination!