Swiss Chard, Italian Salami and Mushroom Quiche

The Swiss Chard in several pots on the balcony and beside my tomato plants behind the house was growing like crazy.

Since I am off to the Nuerburgring for week starting this weekend, some of the greens had to go. My last harvest went to a neighbor. But what to do with this one now?

Luckily yesterday at the hair saloon I saw a photo in a magazine with a Swiss Chard and thought: Why not? But a bit of protein other than the Royal cream and cheese on top was needed. 

Bacon? No! Salami? Oh Yes! I bought Italian wide fennel salami.

And a punnet of white button mushrooms.

Recipe for a 26 cm Quiche dish:

1 round fresh shortcrust pastry

100 g Swiss Chard

400 g white mushrooms

2 spring onions

1 tbsp oil

125 g Italian fennel salami

200 g Skyr

2 eggs

50 g Cheddar cheese

Pepper, salt, nutmeg, Italian bruschetta seasoning

Preheat the oven 170 C fan.

Put the dough in a sprayed quiche or tart dish and press it in. Take a fork and prick the bottom. Place some baking paper on it and use ceramic baking balls or beans or rice to weight it down. 

Bake for 12 min, then take it out.

During that time, seperate the stems from the leaves of the chard. Cut them in 1 inch pieces. Put them with a little water in a microwave dish with a lid and cook them at 800 watts for 5 min.

Roughly chop the leaves and add them to the stems with a little water and just microwave them 2 min more.

Chop green onions and clean the mushrooms anf slice them. Put all of it in a pan with a little oil and sautee them, salt them, until the mushrooms are soft. Cool them down.

Mix Skyr with eggs and all the seasoning in a bowl or in the Skyr package. Grate some cheddar.

Now layer the quiche with salami first. Add mushrooms, then more salami. Put the Swiss Chard on top. And pour the sauce over all. Last comes the cheese

Bake for 35 min, take it out and let it sit 15 min, then serve.

 

Swiss Chard, Beluga Lentils with Feta

Summer salad with homegrown Swiss chard. 

My 9 plants Swiss chard are thriving and that means eating them. Until today I only had them cooked in some way. But today the leaves went in raw and the colorful stems just had 3 min in the pan.

Beluga lentils are very small and nutty. They need 25 min to cook.  Lots of bits and pieces went in the salad.

Ingredients for 1:

60 g beluga lentils, 1 bay leaf

60 g swiss chard

100 g feta

4 cherry tomatoes, 1 green onion, 2 garlic cloves

3 stalks basil, 3 stalks parsley, 3 stalks coriander

1 tbsp capers

40 g almond slices, 50 ml olive oil

30 ml raspberry vinegar, 1/2 lemon zest + juice

1/4 tsp cumin, 1/4 tsp piment d'espelette, salt and pepper

Cook the lentils with the bay leaf until done, drain.

Cut the stems off the chard and in 1 cm pieces. Take the inner stem off the leaves and discard. Chop the leaves in 2 cm wide bands.

In a medium pan heat up the olive oil and toss in the almonds first. Give them 3 min, add chopped onion and garlic. Sautee 3 min and now in with cumin, piment d'espelette, salt and pepper.

The chard stems follow now. Zest the lemon, add capers and raspberry vinegar and finish cooking. Set aside to cool down a bit.

In a bowl add chard, lentils, chopped tomatoes and fresh herbs. Break the feta in small chunks and add to the bowl. Finish with the mix from the pan. Toss the salad and check the salt level.

If you use capers in salt, wash them. But they are still saltier than the capers in vinegar.

Let the salad sit for 20 min before serving.

Harvest season behind the house has started.