Mystery Greens

Mystery Greens
In one little corner of my garden I had a very successful planting. I just did not know what it was. It looked like spinach but bigger and lighter in color. It tasted like lettuce with a slight bitter aftertaste. I thought I had planted Swiss chard in that spot; but Swiss chard is supposed to have red stems. I brought a few leaves to the office and looked up Swiss chard on the internet. Not all Swiss chard has red stems. That is what I had.

It is good that I looked it up. There are so many great recipes for Swiss Chard. The simplest is just to sauté it with a little garlic and olive oil. http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000965swiss_chard.php There were other recipes for lasagna and Swiss chard pie. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/series/recipes_for_health/chard/index.html I even found a recipe for Swiss chard Tzajiki. I can’t find it again to give the link; but it is made the same as regular Tzajiki, substituting chard for cucumbers.

One of the keys mentioned in almost every article was freshness. Swiss chard is compared to sweet corn in that the sooner after picking it is used, the better it taste. That is probably why chard from the grocery store is not very good. It turned out to be really easy to grow. I will report on the flavor. Hopefully we will try it soon.


David Segrest is an International REALTOR in Charlotte, NC. His email is david@segrestrealty.com , His webpage is http://www.segrestrealty.com , and his international real estate blog is http://dointernationalrealestate.blogspot.com/.