Swiss chard food

Swiss chard food is the veggie that made Pop Eye famous, and with good reason. It's one of the organic greens that pulls a lot of punch.

Swiss-chard and spinach are first cousins.

Just as important, it's very easy to grow. In the far northern climes, of course it's a summer vegetable. I remember planting it in our allotment in Lombard, Illinois, when I was a student in chiropractic college.

This page was last updated by Bernard Preston on 4th November, 2021.

Here in our mild South African climate, situated at 31 degrees south, as compared to 42° in Chicago, we can grow vegetables year round, though some like green beans are frost sensitive; but not our swiss chard food.

You can eat it raw, though I prefer spinach, but you have to pick the very young leaves and devein them.

More usually you would very lightly blanch it as, we are going to do in this recipe, or cook it to make a dish like eggs Florentine.

Swiss chard food

Swiss chard food is so easy to grow and cook; after radishes probably the most rewarding vegetable in the garden. 

There is enormous scope in this recipe to add your favourite salads. The basic idea is to very lightly blanch your Swiss chard leaves, and then drench them, whilst hot, in a sauce.

Then you can add feta, or tomatoes, or red peppers and onions. Use whatever is growing in the garden, or is in season at the green grocer.

Remember the leaves shrivel down to almost nothing, so you need a good helping, particularly if it's the main dish. This fed five hungry people, as a side plate, today, and was much enjoyed by all.

1. In a small bowl add 2 tablespoons of olive oil, 1TBSP of Balsamic vinegar, and later add two of the hot liquid used to cook the Swiss chard below. Now a teaspoon of sea salt, a finely chopped clove of garlic and, if you like it spicy, a few slithers of jalapeno. Stir in one teaspoon of honey, and set aside.
   
2. Wash your Swiss chard thoroughly or you may find you are enjoying spinach escargot! The bugs certainly know this is good food.
3. If the leaves are large, devein them and discard for this salad. In the next dish, I would use the finely chopped stalks.
4. Pour 2cm of hot water into a large pot and bring rapidly to the boil.
5. Drop half the leaves in for one minute after they have back to the boil, and remove using a holy spoon, or at least that's what we call it.
6. Dunk the hot, lightly blanched leaves into the olive oil mix, and thence into a pretty serving dish. Repeat with the rest of the swiss chard.
   
7. Raw onions give me indigestion, so I drop the sliced rings in the boiling water, also for perhaps a minute. Spread them on the swiss chard.
8. In the above recipe I tossed some freshly harvested green peas as they are in season; that's optional.
9. Add some slithers of tomato or red bell peppers, or whatever you fancy, and finish it off with half a cup of crumbled feta cheese, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice.
   
10. If you use pitted olives toss a cupful on your swiss chard salad recipe. Ever since a good Italian friend told me that no self respecting lover of good food would ever use pitted olives, I put them in a separate bowl on the table. Otherwise one of your visitors will likely be visiting the dentist before the day is out! 
    

If you've never tasted green peas, fresh from the garden, then you're missing out on a treat. Within twelve hours the sugars have been turned to starch and they've lost their zest. This little lesson from how to grow peas will certainly be worth your time if you love good food.

Mixed greens

Mixed greens make a lovely salad; just add the likes of olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice, and perhaps hummus.

Sparkling wellbeing is dependent on a wide variety of foods, so in fact, today I actually used some young beet tops and kale, along with the swiss chard.

If you are aiming for your ten coloured foods per day, you have to be a bit imaginative. With a wellness tag of 35% lower all cause of death, it's worth the effort. It tastes better too; my brother in law wanted the recipe, and he's a serious cook of note.

Eggs Florentine

Eggs Florentine is Bernard Preston's breakfast virtually every day. Today he's added fresh green peas from the garden; legumes have the added benefit of satiety; no longer will you feel famished at 11 o'clock. It's snacking, particularly if it's refined carbs, that cause the blood glucose to soar, creating eventually insulin resistance and prediabetes.

You can enjoy your Swiss chard raw or lightly blanched, but just as good is cooked with high heat for a short time. Used as the bed for a couple poached eggs it makes the perfect banting food as it has very little starch.

You'll find my eggs florentine at recipes for swiss chard. We eat it virtually every day. Dinkum! Just add some garlic and whatever else is in the garden. This morning it was freshly picked green peas.

It took me perhaps ten minutes to harvest the peas and swiss chard, and another five to cook this. Got fifteen minutes in the morning before work, or at least over the weekend?

When the peas are over, we use lima or fava beans instead; it's all about legumes. More, they are nature's way of trapping nitrogen for the plants so you won't need inorganic fertilisers.

Phytochemicals

Phytochemicals will probably decide how long you will live.

Your Swiss chard foods are particularly rich in many different phytochemicals with strange names likes indoles and flavonoids. They are powerful antioxidants and anti inflammatories. Including phytochemical foods in the diet on a daily basis contributes vastly to a sense of well being and greater zest for life, particularly of the blood vessels; atherosclerosis is a nasty disease.

Lutein is the phytochemical that along with zeaxanthin prevents macular degeneration; are you along with many millions needlessly going blind?

• Lutein benefit

is a subject it behooves all of us to be up on. Knowledge about good nutrition is the third of the ten commandments of food security incidentally.

Swiss chard mold

You may find in midsummer with high temperatures and humidity that Swiss chard mold appears making your plants unsightly.

It's just a period; try not to wet the leaves when you water the plants, and prune back the diseased parts.

We use worm wee extensively to increase the strength of the plants, but for a period it remains a problem. Nevertheless, we rarely miss a breakfast when we can't enjoy eggs Florentine. Just cut back the diseased leaves, and pick them when still young before the mould sets in. There's absolutely no necessity to spray it with a fungicide. 

Spinach or Swiss chard food make wonderful greens to be enjoyed daily. Right now though we are experimenting with new plants that are mold resistant.

There's a temptation to pull the plants, but our experience is to prune them back, and next season most of them will spring up again.

Nutritious choice foods

Nutritious choice foods are what give you an even chance of reaching eighty with all your marbles intact and taking a minimum or not medication.

It means turning to slow food, made fast, and eschewing what the supermarkets are tempting you to buy. Stick with your local greengrocer, butcher and fishmonger.

Choice foods also means aiming for 8 to 10 coloured foods every day; that will lower the all cause of death by a massive 35 percent.

Swiss chard food was good for Popeye; it's good for you too.

Give some thought to the ten commandments of food security periodically as you munch your way through this magnificent Swiss chard food.

Bernard Preston

Bernard Preston is a semi-retired DC who is fascinated with green living and ensuring that Earth is a fit place for our grandchildren to live. We also hope to pass on this legacy to our family and that means in part getting back to fresh real meals like Swiss chard food. 

That means a return to nutritious food, plenty of exercise and mental-stimulation; and, on whatever scale is possible, growing your own fruit and vegetables.

Fresh from the garden they taste and are much better, not to mention devoid of the dangerous chemicals that modern farming sprays on your food. Getting your garden soil ready is a huge topic all on it's own. 

Something will surely get us eventually, but need it be cancer at sixty, or an autoimmune disease at fifty, or a stroke at seventy?

Bernard Preston says let's aim for a zestful eighty and ninety, taking a minimum of drugs and with all our joints intact. He is utterly convinced that if you are enjoying these kinds of foods every day, and keep cakes and cookies for high and holy days only, then you can delete the word diet from your conversation and, even more important, your thinking; start with Bernie's nutritious spinach dip on your green salad; young Swiss chard food is perfect.

Swiss chard food makes a simple start to your new resolution.

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