Week #4: Community Supported Agriculture - featuring Rainbow Swiss Chard

The past few weeks, our CSA has consistently provided Swiss Chard. I absolutely love Swiss Chard, to me it's like spinach with a backbone.

By mercedesfromtheeighties
(Chard in the Victory Garden) via Wikimedia Commons

As I mentioned last week, my spouse's Lebanese sitto (grandma), always used Swiss chard instead of spinach in her fatayer. What I didn't mention is that the leftover filling once you run out of the pastry is called (I cannot quite spell it phonetically, but I'll try...) Salee.

I want to share our salee recipe. I combined the kale and Swiss chard. To prepare the kale, you need to chop it, boil it and then squeeze the water out. That keeps it from being too tough and bitter. The Swiss chard doesn't require the same treatment. Cooking with CSA ingredients requires flexibility. You don't know what you're going to get, but the benefits of cooking with fresh seasonal ingredients is well worth the surprise!

• 8 cups greens (spinach, Swiss chard, kale, etc.)
• 1 ½ cups yellow onion, finely diced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice

I chopped the chard and prepared kale and sprinkled it with the salt. While the greens and salt are resting, I chopped my fresh onion that also came with my CSA. Mix the onion with the pepper, lemon juice, and cinnamon & allspice. Combine with greens and then put into microwave safe dish. Microwave on medium power until onions are soft, about 3-5 minutes.

Enjoy!

This week's box included:

• Summer squash
• Zucchini
• Chard
• Head lettuce
• Cucumber
• Onion
• Cauliflower
• Kale
• Radishes
• Blueberries

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