Red Chard & Kidney Bean Soup

I had some fresh red chard the other day and wanted to make something simple. I decided on a simple soup with some sausage. I had some breakfast sausage so I worked with that.

I diced 1/2 of a yellow onion and two cloves of garlic and sautéed in about 1 tbsp of olive oil. I added salt, pepper and a couple teaspoons of oregano. Then, I added 6 ounces of breakfast sausage and cooked until it browned. I peeled and chopped 2 carrots and 1 potato and added them. Then I added 1 small 6 oz. can of diced tomatoes and about 12 oz of water and left it to simmer.

Meanwhile I cut the red chard leaves in thing strips and about 10 minutes before serving I added the chard and cooked until it was softened. I also added a can of kidney beans. I did not bother straining or rinsing the beans, knowing the liquid will just enrich the broth.

This made a delicious and simple soup that only got better the next day and the next. It made 4 servings.

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Red Chard & Chickpea Salad

I made a quick salad using the stems from red chard the other day. I had a bunch of red chard and had removed the leaves and washed them for a soup I was planning to make and though tossing the stems would be a complete waste, so I chopped them up, chopped up 2 radishes, 1 carrot, half an onion, 3 dill pickles and added a can of chickpeas (strained). I adde dome salt, pepper and about 1/2 cup of the pickle juice and then let it marinate in the pickle juice overnight. It was easy and delicious.

Red chard can be very earthy – sort of like beets, but unlike beets they still taste good – and the pickling brine from the dill pickles made a huge difference in mellowing the flavor of the stems. The whole salad was fresh, lovely and crispy. This made about 4 servings.