Personally, I don't like roasted greens.....I think they taste bitter. I would make a pie with the greens. Galette style with a nice tasty cheese. But I couldn't eat it because I'm doing weight watchers . Sob. But I could enjoy watching you eat it lol.

That sounds interesting! I certainly don't want more bitter. How would you make the filling besides adding cheese?

I found a recipe for greens in a potato and cheese tart recently, I used some bacon in it but the recipe doesn't call for any meat. Here's a link from the site.

Cookstr Rustic Potato and Greens Pie

My best recipe for Swiss chard is one from Lidia Bastianich called Erbazzone. Never had heard of it but happened on it in '09 from gifted cookbook and make it very often. Chard is easy to grow in the garden and good for you. It has a lovely simple rustic olive oil crust patted out on a small sheet pan, covered with cooked chard and lots of parm and some garlic. It is baked and eaten warm, or my fav - chilled with a sprinkle of hard cheese. Epicurious published her recipe: Swiss Chard Erbazzone

Houzz won't let me post a photo but you can see it at: Italian version of Erbazzone

Oh yum, I like greens, and beet greens are my favorite. I tend to be boring, though, I put fresh greens in a pan and either add a little water or some oil and I cook them. Then I eat them, with salt and pepper. Elery likes to add smoked meat, he prefers smoked turkey legs, and that's good too, I'll eat 'em any way they come except swimming in pure vinegar which is how Grandma used to make me eat them. I didn't realize I even liked greens until I was an adult!

Annie

Interesting that the first three recommended more or less the same thing. I have half a pound of chard, however. Not enough to make a pie. So, I just tasted both the chard and the beet greens. They're not nearly as bitter as usual, though the beet green develops a lot of bitter on the back side. I'm a bit greens challenged. I eat most of my dark green leafies raw, but the chard/collard/heavy kale, etc. always seem to get me in a funk. I keep trying different things and nothing sticks, but I want to want them. :)

So I think I'll try Edie's and Annie's suggestion of just cooking them, and maybe I'll add the beets (golden) for sweetness. And sherry. I'm thinking the greens really want sherry.

And I'll save the recipes for cheese pie with greens to make on purpose. :)

Nancy, is that right that Lidia's erbazzone dough has no fat?

pillog - the fat is in the olive oil crust. It really is delicious. It is easy to cut this for 1/4 the amounts. The eggs give it lightness. A few years later I watched her show featuring the erbazzone where she added some dried bread crumbs, a bit of parm and of course some red pepper flakes (which go into everything she makes). It can also be made with cooked squash that I have not tried. Other erbazzone recipes use spinach with mushrooms so it is a matter of choosing which greens you like best. I'm not a big fan of greens anyway so trying this was a stretch. DH douses his with malt vinegar, Southerners with white or apple cider vinegar - for me I just eat lots of bread with greens to temper the taste though this way I eat lots of it. Maybe 'cause I love the crust.

Thanks, Nancy. I didn't get enough sleep. I read and reread the ingredients, and didn't see the oil. I just looked again and there it was! I really do want to try it, but not today. Thank-you for the recipe and the variations!

I have some sort of leafy green just about every day. Chard, beet greens, kales, collards. Juiced or rolled and very thinly sliced, massaged with lemon and tBsp olive oil raw in a salad.

Chard and beet greens I find very mild. Never have I had bitter but I never roast those. Both of those have tender stems that I chop fine and sauté with garlic and a shallot. Add the leafy tops coarsely chopped turn down the pan to low and cover to steam. 5 minutes max if that. Most often topped with garlic chips. Nice side with just about anything.

I have about 10-12 pounds right now of various greens. Will be processing while dinner prepping soon. (just had a big delivery an hour ago.) I don't have fridge space for all of it so I cut the stem ends and soaking most of it in cold water. Just the stems down in water. Very fresh from the wholesaler. I plan on blanching, then slicing thin, then into 1/2 pints for the freezer. I can then add those frozen 1/2 pints to anything like a soup or hot pot. Or just heated/steamed as a side. Or added to a grain or bean dish.

When added to a hot soup or grain pot blanched/frozen, they thaw/cook and never get over-cooked being the last ingredient added to the pot.

With such a small amount I would sautés/steam. Chard and beet greens are not long lasting in the crisper drawer. Not very sturdy. Washed, dried thoroughly, and bagged with a clean slightly damp kitchen towel or p-towel they last for a few days or week max.

Blanch and freeze if not in the mood for it now.

NYTimes just posted an article about saving/preserving greens but pretty much what I just said and what I do.

Linky, HERE

(please let me know if the pay wall comes up...they said they have lifted it for most articles)....from my end I can't tell.

Thanks for all the info. My dark greens are more in the arugula and broccoli sphere most of the time. I did that three compound test and came up supertaster. All three taste really bitter to me, so I have a genetic predisposition to sense bitter much more strongly than most people. I still eat the bitter greens, but from intellectual desire rather than delight. Selling them to the family is even trickier. I figure the CSA, which always has something, is a good way to push it (though I could substitute something nicer). :)

The carrot tops aren't lovely. I may put them in soup. I'm going to make clear the fridge soup today. I'll put the chard stems in too. :)

Chard works great in a soup when added a few minutes before removing from the heat. I add it to minestrone, pasta e fagioli, and chickpea stew to name a few.

I like to prepare chard as I would spinach, except for adding the sliced stems first to cook a bit longer. I like to use part butter, part olive oil, minced garlic, salt & pepper and a pinch of nutmeg, saute, then cover & steam until done. A bit of lemon juice at the end is good too.

The chard stems didn't make it into the soup. Maybe next time. :)

The stems are my favorite part!

They're so tough! I considered pickling them, but I know they'd just get lost in the fridge. I will try something. The soup got full to the top just from old stuff. It has the last of my pizza goop (I froze a container of it), the fire roasted tomatoes that didn't belong in the cabbage, the last of the mushrooms, other mushrooms, green garlic, fennel, chili, ME ground beef, chicken stock (more in freezer), gelid chicken goop from the roasted chicken, plus half an onion, a bay leaf and some pepper. It's good soup even without the chard stems. :)

One other thing I like to use chard in is scrambled eggs. Along with tomatoes, cheese and herbs. Deee-licious!

I just planted my chard today. DH likes it sauteed in butter and a little balsamic vinegar. I like a dab of homemade mayo on mine.

I make a dish with ground meat, rice & veggies using chard and the stems get nice and soft and juicy. I made some earlier this week and just finished the last of the leftovers the other day. The sliced stems are cooked for 25 minutes with the rice, which makes them perfectly soft.

When cooking chard by itself, I saute the stems until they get soft before adding the leaves.

I'd cook the leaves with shallots, garlic, let cool, add an egg and some feta and make a pie. If you don't have many leaves, make a small pie!

For the stems, boil them and make a cheesy gratin.

I like almost any kind of green sauteed with onion, garlic and olive oil and then add a can or two of cannellini beans. Serve with parmesan.

I'll do my best. I should say again, this is big chard. The stems are 3-4 times as wide as the chard I get at the grocery store, and 2-3 times as thick. Reminds me more of carpet backing than vegetable. But I'll try...

I am not a fan of big thick stems so I tend to cut them out pretty much all the way up the leaves.

Carpet backing lol....... good luck!

I should updat y'all who have been so kind. Next week, I'll have rainbow chard and kale, so may try the pie.

What I made this week deserves recipe status. Absolutely delicious. The ideas you shared in this thread made it happen.

Golden Beets and Greens

3 tennis ball sized fresh golden beets with full tops, scrubbed rather than peeled, sliced in four in each direction....beet greens and stems sliced in 1.5 inch ribbons

Half-pound bunch of green chard, stems removed if too large and tough, sliced in 1.5” ribbons.

1-2 TBSP extra-light olive oil or other oil for sautéing (won't scorch or smoke)

1 tsp. Butter

salt and pepper

2 big glugs of sherry (3-4 TBSP?)

Heat heavy pot to medium-high, adding oil and butter, S&P.

Add beets and stir until all pieces are coated.

Add sherry, and sauté for a few minutes. Cover and cook until they’re somewhat softened.

Add greens, stir until they're all covered with the pan liquid, then cover and cook until the beets are tender rather than crisp, and the greens are cooked down but not shriveled.

Pictured is about half.

Yay - that looks delicious. So are you now a greens convert? :-) I love Swiss Chard.

Thanks, Edie. It's not a point of “convert”. It's finding ways to make them not be a bitterfest. The butter helps. I daresay it takes the place of pork fat, but mostly, I think, it's the proportion of bitter greens to sweet beets. Balance and all that. I now understand that I perceive things differently, and my genetic heritage makes me taste them as poison. I'm trying to find ways to get past that. I think this would work with red beets, too, but this week's box has rainbow chard and red kale, no beets. Red kale isn't as difficult, so I'm planning to try the cheese pie with the two of them,

ETA, this recipe is even good warmed over!