I am finding it hard to rethink my life now that summer is coming to an end. Our trips to Birch Haven Resort are over except for one trip in early October to close down our camper. Bernie goes up this weekend and I will stay home. I plan to use up the rest of our canning jars for roma tomatoes. We have such an abundance this year. Once I am done, the rest will go to the food shelf. I still have chard to freeze. We don’t have to do anything with the squash. They continue to ripen after we pull them. We will cut one open now and then to check them out. When they are ready, I’ll cook some up, mash them, and put the pulp in plastic bags that I can flatten and stack in the freezer. We love heating them up and eating them like mashed potatoes.
We have plenty of potatoes this year, too, both russets and reds. I cooked some up as wedges in the oven last night. A friend of mine puts together and sells little seasoning packets one of which is for oven roasted potatoes. Yummy. I need some good potatoe recipes.
We missed the strawberry and the peach harvest this year. I haven’t found a source for apples so far. I like putting up a few frozen pies to pull out in the winter for potlucks.
Bernie and I are off this morning to park cars for a fundraiser for the Boys & Girls Club of Little Falls, Minnesota. It is chilly out. It will feel strange to be working in the cold air.
I discovered chard about five years ago. It is a plant that grows like other salad greens. In fact, I find chard seed among herb and lettuce packets on the rack. It looks like Romain lettuce. It tastes and cooks a lot like spinach. One reason I like growing it is that its leaves are so much large than spinach. I don’t have to work so hard to get enough leaves to make a serving. In most recipes I think it could be used interchangeably with spinach in salads and cooked recipes.
Chard leaves are green but the stems come in colors green, white, yellow, and red. I haven’t had as much luck growing the fancy colors as I have with the green/white stemmed variety. I can cut off leaves from a plant and more will grow well into the fall. I freeze chard for winter use. I cut the leaves, trip the green from the stems (which can be stir fried themselves), then I blanch the leaves for 2 minutes, drain them, drop in ice water, then take the limpy chard out by the handfull and squeeze out the water. I pack the chard in plastic bags, about 1 cup or a small snack size plastic bag.
Uses…I always throw some in my vegetable soup or substitute it for spinach in any recipe that calls for spinach. I like scrambling it into eggs with feta or parmesian cheese or in any omelet as one of the vegetables. I will prepare it like classic crearmed spinach. I like it over pasta in a garlicky white sauce.To use it from the frozen state…that little frozen ball I created…I may thaw it slightly in my microwave oven, then cut it in chunks.
There are still vegetables out there I haven’t tried. I recently used fresh fennel in a chicken recipe…it was fabulous. I like hearing from others what they have tried and how the heck to prepare something new. Good hearing from you. I hope to visit Australia one day.
Thankyou for explaining to me what it is,, I have never come across it but im sure its here in aus.. I dont do as much cooking now there is only 2 of us left at home.. but, in saying that summer is just around the corner here so its BBQ and salad time here for a few months.. I will keep my eye out for chard when we do the shopping next.. You should visit aus one day its a beautiful little place.. lots to see and do and we are a pretty friendly bunch of people. Brooke
I have a granddaughter in Australia. I would love to go there.
Hello .., Im from Australia and I often read the Jeub blog spot and i noticed you blog also.. I was reading your blogs and I hope you dont find this silly but could you please tell me what ‘chard’ is.. I have never heard of it before.. Thanking you and Take care.. Brooke