Kitchen Garden Forum

Need to clear the space where this is growing for new crops and just used this way of using some of it up

Swiss chard with pasta spirals in a mixed cheese sauce .(garnished with toasted pine nuts)

Heat a pan with a little oil and add chopped garlic for a few minutes. Throw in required amount of washed wet Swiss chard and let it wilt down for about 3 minutes. (It hardly needs any cooking). . Make a cheese sauce in a separate panusing whatever cheeses you have but including a small amount of blue cheese really improves the flavour. Boil some pasta spirals and toast a handful of pine nuts.
Mix the wilted Swiss chard in with the cheese sauce and stir into the drained pasta spirals. Garnish with the toasted pine nuts.

You could substitute chopped Curly kale in this recipe but as its a lot tougher than Swiss Chard It,s better to pre cook it (boiling or steaming) for about 8 - minutes first.

I've just dug mine as well Primrose!

I made Spanish Omelette with chorizo, rainbow chard stems & leaves, onion etc (Lunch today at work), threw some into soups, did a gratin thing & went checking 'silver beet' recipes as they call it down under. I have rainbow, but some plain to fit that description, not that I think it would matter.

Unfortunately, no room in the fridge & weather too hot so what left wilted as had quite a lot - but not wasted in the compost bin either.

Thanks for those ideas. I've still lots left from the free rainbow chard seeds in last year's KG mag. As well as eating it ourselves I'm giving any that are going to seed to the hens for their afternoon treat. I've found this particular variety milder flavoured than some of the coloured ones. I'm not keen on the strong earthy taste you sometimes get particularly with the dark red ones.

Why dig it up when it comes back every year?

Interesting WHR?
Mine are pretty huge after one season in the ground and the stalks are fat & huge poking up & taking lots of space? Do you mean this continues to grow or do you let it self sow new plants?

i've also never heard of leaving it in to continue to go on growing indefinitely. Does it belong to the same family as sorrel? I know that keeps on regenerating itself year after year My few remaining plants have also grown into large ones but around this time it usually starts going to seed so I've never had the chance to leave it to its own devices indefinitely to see what happens after that as I've always needed the growing space for other vegs.

Hi,

I noticed it continues to grow the following year but find it flowers very early, so dig it up. Assumed flowering impacts taste? Grew some in the raised bed last year. It stayed really small and didn't do a lot, similarly did the beetroot next to eat. Lack of food or water maybe??

We chop it up and freeze it and then put it in curries throughout the year. Various, but it's good as a sagaloo instead of spinach.

Pawty

I read somewhere a while ago that's it's a biannual I've left some of mine this year to see what happens, the Leeks (bulgarian giant) which usually go to seed at this time of the year are putting new growth on we had 2 with our meal last night they were great

I chop it down in Autumn and it re-grows in Spring.

I do love this forum! Always something to learn! Thanks for sharing WHR!

I use it as a winter and spring veg so it wouldn't be much use if I cut it down in autumn.

PLUMPUDDING wrote:I use it as a winter and spring veg so it wouldn't be much use if I cut it down in autumn.

I only use the leaves. I tried eating the stems but couldn't get on with it. Too "earthy" for me.