Spring Collards with Garlic Scapes, Young Onions and Prosciutto

The collards of spring are a buttery affair. Sweet and tender, they make a delicious pairing with garlic scapes and small spring onions, an infant version of a fall classic. Scapes, which are the stems of hardneck garlic, are plentiful now (over 200 in my garden alone!) and need to be harvested so that the plant’s energy will be directed to plump the bulbs. I first made this as a side dish and then served it with cooked dried beans (Rancho Gordo beauties) and whole wheat pasta for a complete meal.  I made the dish with prosciutto (our local gourmet deli sells the ends in chunks, which is very convenient) but you could leave that out to make it vegetarian.

For this recipe, I used 1 bunch of collards (10-12 leaves), 3 garlic scapes, 2 spring onions, and an ounce of prosciutto. The collard leaves were cut crosswise into ½-inch ribbons and the other ingredients were cut into ½-inch dice.

I always use collard stems, which cook until tender in a way that only really young kale stems will do.  Just slice the collard leaves from the stems, slice the leaves into ribbons and but the stems crosswise. The stems take longer to cook than the leaves, so I start them with the onions and garlic in most dishes. Here, as I said above, I chopped the stems into ¼-inch lengths and did the same with the scapes, onion and prosciutto. Placed in a wide pan slicked generously with olive oil, I let them cook over medium heat for a minute and then turned down the heat, covered the pan, and let the mixture steam-cook until barely crisp tender. This took under 5 minutes. I then added the collard leaf ribbons, covered the pan, and let the mixture cook slowly until everything is tender, about another 5 minutes. Add salt and liquid red pepper to taste. A little vinegar is also traditional.

For those who find long-cooked collards distasteful, this is a transformative tasting experience. I am fortunate to have access to such fresh and young produce, but even with more mature ingredients, this is a winner of a dinner.

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Spinach Lasagna with Lox

There’s nothing like spinach to lighten up lasagna or lox to brighten its taste.  I layered fresh spinach pasta with spinach-laced ricotta dotted with pieces of home-cured salmon to create a delicious spring treat. When spinach first arrives in the garden or famers’ market, I use it in abundance and to abandon, reveling in the greens that announce the arrival of the growing season.  I was thrilled to make my own lox and determined to diversify how I used it. This lasagna was beautiful as well as delicious and scarcely needs anyone to twist your arm to try it.

 Spinach Lasagna with Lox

6 oz fresh spinach pasta sheets

1 bunch spinach (14-16 oz), well washed and de-stemmed

Salt and pepper

1 egg

1 c ricotta cheese

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp flour

1 c milk, slightly warm

3-4 oz lox, cut into slivers

Oil for the pan

Lightly oil a 6x8x2-inch glass or ceramic baking dish.

Lay slightly damp but absorptive towels on the counter. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place a large bowl of ice water in the sink. When the water boils, dunk the fresh pasta sheets in the hot water, one at a time, for 20-30 seconds, and then in the ice water for a few seconds. Spread them flat on the dampened towels to drain (dampening keeps them from sticking to the cloth).

Dunk the spinach in the boiling water for a few seconds and drain it in a colander. (You can also shock it in the ice water to cool it first.) When the spinach is cool, squeeze as much water out of it as possible and chop it. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.

Beat the egg lightly in a medium bowl. Add the ricotta cheese and chopped spinach and mix thoroughly.

Make a béchamel sauce by melting butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat and whisking in the flour. Cook for a few minutes ad gradually add the warmed milk, continuing to whisk the mixture until smooth. Simmer for 5-7 minutes or until it has thickened. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

To assemble the lasagna, spread a very thin layer of béchamel sauce over the bottom of the oiled baking dish. Trim the lasagna sheets to fit the pan, allowing the first layer to curl up the sides. Spread half the ricotta mixture on top and dot with half the slivered lox. Add another pasta sheet and repeat the layers, ending with a pasta sheet. Spread the remaining béchamel sauce on top. (The dish can be prepared ahead to this point.)

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 35-40 minutes or until the sauce is bubbling and the top is lightly browned. Remove from the oven and let the lasagna sit for 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 4 amply.

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Seared Sesame Tuna on Mustard Greens

I am not a fan of mixed bouquets of flowers unless I gather them myself. Left without a choice, I buy more than one bunch and separate the flowers into types, displaying them in multiple vases. That’s what I thought about this collection of mustard greens dubbed “spicy mix” that I brought home from our CSA. Green tatsoi, tiny red Osaka, tiny leaves of green curly mustard, tender blousy leaves of pale green mustard, frisée-like red mustard. I selected the latter in abundance from the bin since I thought it would be good as salad greens. The other mustards were more worthy of a stir-fry. This combination of greens is sometimes called “braising mix,” a preparation that would be overkill for such a fresh bunch of greens.

I had a nice hunk of locally fished albacore tuna, which I coated with black sesame seeds (I normally use a combination of black and white but black is all I had on hand). Placed in a pan with vegetable oil over high heat, the steak was cooked on one side and then the other until well browned but still raw in the middle. Fish continues to cook after being removed from the stove, so after letting it sit for 1 minute, I sliced it and set it aside while I assembled the rest of the meal.

I made a “dressing” of 2 tablespoons each of Asian fish sauce and soy sauce, combined with 1 tbsp brown sugar, which I used throughout the dish. I quickly – and I mean instantaneously – stir-fried the mustard greens just to wilt them and sprinkled on the dressing. I combined a small bit of dressing with rice, and piled the cooked greens and then the tuna on top, and surrounded it with the frizzy mustard, sprinkled with a little more dressing. The dressing held the dish together while allowing the flavors and textures of the other ingredients to have their own voice. The black sesame seeds and the dark spidery mustard seemed a little spooky but why not play with your food at Halloween?  

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Collard Green Rolls with Freekah and Summer Squash

Crossover meals follow the intersection of late summer and early fall. We’re using up the last of our summer crops – zucchini and summer squash among others – while welcoming sturdy autumn vegetables, currently an abundance of greens. Our CSA has an explosion of chard and kale and collards so I’ve been working on creative ways to use them. Of course, there’s our popular crustless greens pie, which is quickly becoming a weekly event, though the ingredients can be cooked up and frozen for later.

Here large flat collard leaves are used as wrappers for a delicious filling of nutty freekah (toasted green wheat – ha, not a crazy joke), pan-roasted onions and summer squash, capers and raisins.  Cooked freekah is nutty in flavor and slightly crunchy, so it was a good counterpoint to the squash and seasonings and the deep green of the collards.  Cracked freekah is cooked much like white rice: bring to a boil two units of water to one of grains, add the grains, stir, turn the heat to a simmer, cover the pan and cook for about 20 minutes. You can make the freekah while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

I discovered that it’s best to leave the collard leaves whole while blanching them in the first step and cut out the toughest part of the stem later. You cut away less of the leaf in this method and there’s less chance of the filling’s leaking out during cooking. Braised in a little liquid in the oven, these are delicious on their own, or as a side dish with roast chicken.  I liked the combination of onions, raisins and capers. Another time, I might omit the capers and incorporate curry powder mixed with the onion and squash.

Collard Green Rolls with Freekah and Summer Squash

6 medium leaves collard greens

A big pot of salted water

½ c cracked freekah

1 c salted water

1 small onion, diced

Olive oil

1 yellow summer squash, trimmed and diced

2 tbsp raisins, plumped in very hot water for 10 minutes

1 tbsp capers

2 tbsp finely chopped parsley

A drop or two of red hot sauce (e.g., Tabasco, Sriracha)

Salt and pepper

Prepare the collard greens. Trim the long stems of the collards to the edge of the leaves (they can be set aside for another use). Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and plunge 2 leaves at a time into the water, submerging them. Cook about 2-3 minutes (depending on the age of the leaves – mine were just harvested and somewhat young so they cooked in about 2 minutes. Remove them to a colander and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Lay them flat on towels to cool and dry. Carefully cut the stiffest portion of the stem away from the leaves at the base.

Meanwhile, cook the freekah. Rinse the grains. Bring salted water to a boil, add the grains, stir, turn the heat to simmer, cover the pan and cook until the water has been absorbed and the grains are cooked (they’ll be somewhat crunchy), about 20 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Sauté the onion in olive oil until translucent and add the summer squash. Turn up the heat and sauté until the squash is barely cooked and just starting to brown. Set aside to cool.

Assemble the filling and stuff the collard greens. Combine the cooled freekah, vegetable mixture, raisins, capers, parsley and hot sauce. Season to taste with salt pepper. Divide the filling into six portions. Place each one on the collard leaf, toward the stem end (overlap the leaf where you cut the stem to enclose the filling. Fold in the sides and roll up tightly. Place in a baking pan sized to hold the rolls in one layer, seam-side down.

You can make this ahead to this point and refrigerate until ready to bake.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Add a little water (or you could use tomato juice or vegetable broth) to the pan, cover with foil and bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

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Red Chard Whole Wheat Lasagna

A rainy cold front swept through and left a yen for fall comfort food.  In the moment, I made flavorful lasagna with ricotta and chard leaf filling, creamy topping and crispy whole wheat noodles, garnished with the color and crunch of red chard stems. Light yet earthy. Fit for a season that hovers between summer and fall.

While I gravitate toward green chard, or the gorgeous golden-stemmed variety I grow at home, a giant bunch of red chard with brilliantly colored stems ended up in my CSA produce basket this week. It was simply too large for the refrigerator, so I washed out the plentiful sand, separated the stems from the leaves and cooked them all down into a pint-sized container. Amazing. I like to cook greens in just a little water, a process I refer to as shallow boiling. After the greens reduced, I used the residual water to cook the stems, ending up with almost no water to discard, which kept the flavor fully intact in the vegetables.

After the collard “noodles” I made last week, I had been thinking about making lasagna with collard greens instead of or maybe along with pasta. So the idea of lasagna was already pinging around in my head when I deliberated what to do with the chard. I loved the green chard and walnut lasagna I made in the summer and I thought that the red chard stems would create a similar textural contrast to the leaves and cheese.  For that, I used fresh pasta sheets. This time, what I had in the pantry were dried whole wheat lasagna noodles.

Whole wheat pasta often resembles pasty cardboard, which detracts from the rest of the dish. Not this brand. It’s organic, made in Italy and contains 100% whole wheat. It sells under the brand “bionaturae,” and is a very interesting European import (shooting my principle of local sources but worth the experiment). The dried noodles are thin and flat, which bodes well for light lasagna.  They were great.  And I cared for them while cooking to encourage their texture and flavor (see recipe).

For the filling, I opted for the simplest combination of ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese and chopped chard leaves, made aromatic with freshly grated nutmeg. One trick is to hold the filling slightly back from the edges of the noodles. This not only contains the filling during cooking but also allows the edges of the noodles to crisp slightly. Chard stems added crunch to each layer. The topping, a simple white sauce seasoned with onions, as creamy but not unctuous. Sprinkled with chard stems and Parmesan cheese and garnished with fresh parsley, the result was as visually pleasing as it was delicious.  For a dish that just evolved, I was happy.

Red Chard Whole Wheat Lasagna

1 large bunch of red chard

Salt

1 tbsp butter

½ small onion, finely chopped (1/4 c)

1 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 c warmed milk

1 tbsp finely chopped parsley, divided (2 tsp, 1 tsp)

6 sheets of dry whole wheat lasagna noodles

Olive oil

1 c ricotta cheese

3/4 c freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided (½ c + ¼ c)

¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1 tbsp chopped parsley

Wash the chard well. Separate the leaves from the stems and chop or tear them into medium-sized pieces. Chop the chard stems into ¼-inch pieces. Bring a small amount of salted water (1/2 – 1 inch) to boil in wide pan and add the chard leaves. Cook until they are tender, about 5 minutes. Remove the leaves to a colander to drain and cool. Add the chopped chard stems to the water remaining in the pan and cook them until tender, about 5 minutes. Remove to a colander to drain and cool.  The bunch of chard that I used yielded approximately 1 c cooked and chopped leaves and ¾ c chopped stems.

Make béchamel sauce. Melt butter in a medium saucepan and add the chopped onion, cooking over low heat until the onion is translucent, about 3-5 minutes. Add the flour and whisk to combine well. Cook the mixture for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly and being careful not to allow the flour to brown. Gradually add the warm milk, whisking the mixture to avoid lumpiness. Cook the sauce on medium-low heat until thickened, about 5 minutes, stirring it occasionally to keep it from sticking to the pan or becoming lumpy. Add 2 tsp of finely chopped parsley and salt to taste. Set aside to cool

Prepare the noodles.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it liberally. Cook the noodles until al dente, about 6-8 minutes. Remove and drain under a little cool water. Spread them on towels to drain and sprinkle them with a little olive oil and salt while they’re cooling.

Prepare the ricotta-chard filling. Squeeze the cooled chard leaves to remove as much moisture as possible and chop them fine. Combine the chard leaves with ricotta cheese, ½ c of the Parmesan cheese and the grated nutmeg.

Assemble the lasagna. Sprinkle the bottom of a glass or ceramic pan of approximately 7 ½  x 10 inches with a little olive oil and cover with two lasagna noodles side by side, allowing the edges to curl up the sides of the pan a little. Spoon on half the ricotta-chard filling, spreading it evenly but not quite to the edges of the noodles (this allows the noodle edges to crisp and keeps the filling from oozing). Sprinkle on one-third of the chard stems and top with two more noodles. Repeat the previous layer, ending with two noodles on top. Spread the bechamel sauce over the top, strew the remaining chards stems over the sauce and sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup of Parmesan cheese. The dish can be prepared ahead to this point and refrigerated. (The chard stems might bleed a little.)

When ready to bake the lasagna, let it come to nearly room temperature if it has been refrigerated.  Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the bottom is bubbly and the top is browned.  Let the lasagna sit for ten minutes before serving.

Serves 4-6 depending on the portion size.

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Braised Pork and Peppers on Collard Noodles

Ever get tired of pasta? We are. And besides, wheat doesn’t agree with some of us and pasta from other grains just doesn’t cut it. I had made a quick braise of pork loin (a method that also works with chicken) and was trying to figure out an accompaniment other than pasta. Grains didn’t seem right. I needed a wide noodle. And they were: great flat leaves of collards, all the ready for slicing into broad bands. Shallow-boiled in salted water until “al dente,” they were the perfect substitute for pasta, and more nutritious too.

This meat braise is a great dish that comes together in under half an hour and is sophisticated enough for a dinner party. I use a small pork loin, not the huge ones that are already packaged, though those would work as well. Or use boneless chicken breast or thighs. Sprinkle the meat with salt and paprika, brown it lightly on all sides, splash on white wine and chicken stock (or add a teaspoon or two of white wine vinegar to chicken stock), pile on sliced peppers and onions, cover and cook slowly for 20 minutes. Add a little sour cream. Sprinkle with herbs. That’s it.

Braised Pork Loin with Peppers and Onions

½-¾ lb pork loin (or boneless chicken)

Paprika and salt

Vegetable oil

1 medium onion, sliced vertically in thin moon-shaped pieces

1 orange or yellow bell pepper, sliced thin

Optional: thinly sliced poblano pepper

1 clove garlic, sliced

¼ c white wine

½ c chicken stock

2 tbsp sour cream

Parsley

Sprinkle the pork loin with paprika and salt. Heat vegetable oil in a medium skillet that will hold the pork loin in one piece (or halve the meat). Brown the meat on all sides over medium high heat. Add white wine and let it reduce. Turn down the heat, add the stock and pile the onions, peppers and garlic on top of the meat. Cover the pan and let the mix simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the meat is cooked through. Remove the meat and vegetables to a platter. Reduce the liquid in the pan by a little and add sour cream. Pour over the meat and vegetables and garnish with parsley. (For a nice presentation, slice the meat into thin rounds on the diagonal and arrange on the platter.)

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Okra, Green Bean and Chard Soup

This is a spicy little Indian number. I was researching an Indian okra and yogurt soup that I sampled at the takeout counter at our local organic grocery store a few weeks ago, and I stumbled on this recipe in At Home with Madhur Jaffrey. I will eventually make that soup, but in the meanwhile, this one satisfied the need to use up the abundant green beans and green chard that were crowding my refrigerator.

The soup is silky (but not slimy) in texture from the okra and the addition of coconut milk. The gelatinous texture is greatly diminished when the soup is served piping hot. I used about a quarter of the coconut milk Jaffrey called for, and less chicken stock, and the soup was still not very thick. It definitely became more gelatinous after it sat for a couple of days in the refrigerator. I boosted the cayenne pepper since mine was a mild variety and toasted my own cumin seeds, which made a huge difference.

Okra, Green Bean and Chard Soup adapted from At Home with Madhur Jaffrey

2 tbsp olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

1 medium carrot, chopped

½ lb green beans (about 25 or so), trimmed and coarsely cut up

25 smallish fresh okra, trimmed and cut into 1/3-inch pieces

½-1 lb green Swiss chard, including the stems, chopped

2 tsp whole cumin seed toasted and ground, or 1 tsp ground cumin

¼-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

2-3 c chicken stock, preferably homemade (or more to taste)

1/3 c coconut milk (I used light)

Salt

Optional: additional cayenne and whole cumin seed for garnish

Warm the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots, green beans and okra and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the chard, cayenne and cumin and stir to wilt the chard slightly, 2-3 minutes. Add 2¼ cups of the stock and bring to a boil, Lower the heat, cover the pan and let the soup simmer for about 25 minutes.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender or in batches in a food processor. (This can be made ahead to this point, and can be frozen.  The flavor improves the second day, although the texture becomes silkier because of the okra.)

When ready to serve, add the coconut milk, thin with additional chicken stock if desired and adjust the seasonings, adding salt, cayenne pepper and, if desired, additional toasted cumin seed.

Serves 6.

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Kale on Kale: Salad and Pasta, Happy Together

The raw and the cooked. Delicious, complexly flavored pasta with kale and stewed red onions served atop a raw kale salad with garlicky dressing. Topped with delicata squash croutons, a quintessential early fall supper.

This all happened when I came home on a Friday night, fried from a ridiculously busy week, without a clue about what’s for dinner or how many would show up, and knowing that I’d be going to our CSA farm in the morning to face a staggering harvest. Holy cow. Or, as it turned out, holy kale. 

I was craving raw green salad, so kale it would be, dressed in a garlicky sauce. To tame the bite of raw garlic in this dressing, I simmered roughly chopped cloves in olive oil, let them cool and emulsified them with a combination of red wine vinegar and balsamic. With a little salt and pepper, this created a delicious counterpoint to the sturdy kale leaves.  You could pour it on the greens while it’s warm to wilt them slightly, or cool the dressing first.

To dress the pasta, I caramelized thin moon-shaped pieces of red onion, cooking them slowly (15-20 minutes) in olive oil and finishing them with balsamic vinegar. The onions created a sweet note to the lightly stewed kale. Here I preferred wide pasta, fettuccini, which was sprinkled with wonderful toasted butternut squash seed oil from the Finger Lakes district of New York. The company also makes delicata squash seed oil. The combination of textures, flavors and colors created a completely satisfying and nutritious meal. Yum. 

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Chard and Potato Curry

By mid-August, my kitchen is in a state of perpetual triage. Menu planning is on defense. What I cook everyday has more to do with using whatever’s getting too ripe, too overgrown, or taking too much room in the refrigerator. Take beans for example. My garden overflows with wax beans, purple romanos, green string beans, red noodle yard long beans. Bushes and runners, all of which need constant picking so that the plants don’t stop. Or the endless cherry tomatoes. Or the infamous zucchini and eggplant.

And then there are chard and potatoes. I am growing gorgeous yellow-stalked chard in my garden, which, like in French potagers is used for its color, a standout like a gorgeous flower. But the chard in question came from our CSA. As did the potatoes. Both are bumper crops this year and have been distributed in tremendous quantities (think about how to use 6 pounds of potatoes a week even stretched over a couple of months).  I normally cook the greens shortly after I come home from the farm, just because those billowy bags of greens overwhelm the refrigerator and hide what else it might contain. 

It’s also that time of year when the weather has shifted from hot and humid to a hint of crisp air, when night temperatures are lower and the skies are clear.  The earthiness of this chard and potato curry makes it a great dish for a transitional season, though it is equally as effective made with sweet potatoes in late fall.  I did not peel the potatoes, which made it a sturdier and earthier dish, but that’s a matter of personal preference. We liked the depth of flavor, which improved the next day (so you can make this ahead of time, except for the final addition of yogurt and cilantro). Now what am I going to do next week with another pound of chard and another few pounds of new potatoes?

Chard and Potato Curry adapted from an online recipe by River Cottage

I lb green chard

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 onion, halved crosswise and sliced vertically into half moons

1 large clove garlic, chopped

½ jalapeno pepper, diced

¾-inch piece of fresh ginger, diced

1 tsp salt

1 tsp garam masala

½ tsp ground cumin

½ tsp yellow or brown mustard seed

¼ tsp ground turmeric

3 pods cardamom, crushed

8 small new potatoes, quartered

Water

¼ c full-fat yogurt

1 plum tomato, chopped (or 1 tbsp puree)

A handful of cilantro leaves

Salt and pepper

Optional: handful of toasted peanuts or almonds

Wash and drain the chard. Cut the stems away from the leaves and slice them crosswise, Cut or tear the chard leaves. Set aside.

Heat the vegetable oil over medium heat in a large wide pan that has a lid. Add the onion and cook until just becoming translucent.

Meanwhile, using a mortar and pestle, grind the garlic, pepper, ginger and salt to a paste. Add it to the onions.  Cook for about a minute, until aromatic. Add the spices and cook for a minute until well combined.

Add the chard stems and the potatoes and stir to coat them well in the aromatics, cooking them for about 5 minutes, Add water nearly to cover and cook, covered, until the potatoes are nearly tender, 5-8 minutes. Add the chard leaves and wilt them down.

Combine the yogurt and tomato, and add a little liquid from the pan to warm it up. Turn the heat to low on the vegetables and add the yogurt mixture. (Adding it without warming could cause it to curdle, and would turning up the heat at this point.)

Add the cilantro leaves, and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

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Chard and Walnut Lasagna

Managing the abundance of greens from a CSA or an overflowing garden can be a challenge. Your own garden gives you the flexibility of when to harvest, but a CSA haul challenges your refrigerator, and your ingenuity. As I’ve written before, I’ve learned to prepare the most voluminous vegetables first: spinach, chard, and beet greens, for example. Recently, with a weekly pound or two of chard from our CSA, I have had to stay on top of the situation. And it takes some planning to use it up before the end of the week, despite how many frittatas or tartines or grilled cheese sandwiches with greens or pasta dishes you can throw together impromptu.

Since I had fresh sheet pasta on hand (wish I’d made it but I didn’t), I searched my farm journal for a certain chard lasagna that I once made at this time of year, and turned up nothing. Drat. No master index. But I did find a note about this lasagna, which is a riff on a recipe from Deborah Madison’s Local Flavors. That book had me hooked just by the title. She toured farmers’ markets throughout the country and wrote about what she bought and cooked.  I admit that whenever I travel, I seek out markets and even grocery stores to get a sense of local culture and values. Pretty revealing.

From the marginalia in the book (I write lots of notes in my cookbooks), I seemed to have followed her course pretty closely because I was intrigued with her use of no-boil noodles, apparently novel to me at the time, and the solution to use milk as a moistener (and no eggs in the filling). I’ve noted how to adjust for pasta type in the recipe below.  Here, I used fresh pasta sheets, the stems of chard in addition to the leaves, grated nutmeg for enticing allure, and otherwise so altered Madison’s recipe that I now can attribute only the inspiration. But with her brilliant way with vegetables, that’s a high compliment.

Chard and Walnut Lasagna inspired by Deborah Madison, Local Flavors

For a 6-cup 6×8 inch pan serving 4:

1½ lb chard

½ c walnuts

¾ c ricotta cheese

2 oz mozzarella cheese, coarsely grated

½ c grated Parmesan cheese

Optional: salt and ground nutmeg to taste

5 sheets fresh pasta, trimmed to size of pan (or use boiled noodles or no-boil noodles with ¼ c milk)

Olive oil and milk

Prepare the chard. Wash it thoroughly and cut the leaves away from the stems. Cut the stems into slices or matchsticks, depending on their size and shape. In a large saucepan, wilt the chard with the water that clings to their leaves (or if large or old, add ½-1 cup of water to the pan to shallow-boil them).  Remove to a sieve to drain, capturing the liquid. Add the liquid back to the saucepan and shallow-boil the chard stems. By the end, you should have some liquid, probably less than half a cup. Save this to moisten the lasagna filling.  When the chard leaves are cool, squeeze out the excess liquid and chop them coarsely.

You can prepare the chard well in advance, storing the chopped leaves and stems separately.

When you are ready to make the lasagna, heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Put a large pot of water on to boil (for the lasagna noodles, see notes below). Lightly oil a 6-cup glass pan (approximately 6×8 inches) and sprinkle it with milk (the oil and milk will not mix, but the milk will help moisten the lasagna noodles).

Toast the walnuts in a dry pan and set aside to cool. Chop them medium-fine.

Prepare the filling. Set a few tablespoons of chard stems aside. Combine the remaining chard stems and the chopped leaves with the ricotta cheese and add the Parmesan cheese and half the mozzarella. Add a little chard cooking liquid or milk if using fresh or no-boil noodles. Season with a little salt and nutmeg if desired, remembering that the cheese may contain ample salt.

Prepare the noodles. If using fresh noodles, dunk them in lightly boiling water for a few seconds before placing in the pan. If using no-boil noodles, do the same, but for about 30 seconds. When you place them in the pan, you will need to sprinkle them with a little milk in addition to the filling, or add it to the filling. If using dried noodles, cook them until they just start to become tender. You don’t want them mushy or the lasagna will be watery.

Assemble the lasagna. Place lasagna noodles in the bottom of the pan to cover. (If using no-boil noodles, distribute 1 tbsp of milk on top of the noodles before you add the filling unless you’ve made the filling a little wet.) Spread 1/3 of the filling on top and sprinkle with 1/3 of the walnuts. Repeat twice and top with noodles. (Bottom to top: noodle, filling and walnuts, noodle, filling and walnuts, noodle, filling and walnuts, noodle.)

Sprinkle the top with the reserved chard stems and remainder of the mozzarella. Bake for about 40 minutes or until bubbly and browned. Cool for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving.

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