swiss chard

Do you like swiss chard? I hadn't known about it until the last time I went home (to Hawaii).

In Hawaii, lots of people grow veggies in their yard and share with family and friends when they get bumper crops.

Anyway, the last time I was home, we received swiss chard several times, from one of my grandma's friends...by this point, the rest of my family was tired of eating this, but for me it was something new.

It reminds me of eating the greens of beets, which are totally rare to see in our area of Japan. (the beets and the greens)

So, I was at the market the other day, they have a special corner now for veggies grown around Japan that are kinda "ugly", the items are deformed or not pristine like most veggies you see in the markets.

And on them, most have the names of the farmers that grew them too.

I kind of have a pet peeve with how pristine most veggies are here and would be happy to pay a little less for an "ugly" one because I think it will almost more than likely taste the same or maybe even better than that pristine one.

Plus, I think the "ugly" ones may be organic...

Anyway, I spotted bags of this swiss chard in this area and they were so colorful!

And they were only 100 yen (about US$1) each so I bought 2 bags.

To prepare them, I washed and put them into a non-stick pan.

I wilted them down and then blanched them in cold water to stop the cooking.

Then I squeezed out the water, and cut them into about 3 inch pieces.

Before serving, I cut the pieces into bite sized pieces and then topped with leftover ginger-sesame sauce.

Usually in our household (in Hawaii), we eat spinach, beets (swiss chard) with a shoyu-mayo mixture.

Since the ginger-sesame sauce was a similar flavor, this went really nicely with it.

I'm glad I came across this at the market.