Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Swiss Chard Chips- Take One

Remember the beautiful swiss chard I grew in my very own backyard, and was so proud of? I was going to make something fantastic with it. I thought why not try swiss chard chips? Kale chips seem to be the in-thing in recent times, and so I decided that swiss chard chips ought to gain some popularity too......

Aim: 

To make swiss chard chips, that will taste fantastic.

Ingredients: 

1. Swiss Chard- nice and clean

2. Salt

3. Pepper

4. Garlic powder (or a couple cloves of crushed garlic)

5. Olive oil

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.

2. Spread the leaves on a baking sheet.

3. Sprinkle salt, pepper per taste, as well as garlic powder. If you use crushed garlic, just sort of distribute it evenly over the leaves.

4. Drizzle some olive oil all over, and toss everything together.


Swiss Chard with seasoning, all set to get into the oven
5. Set inside the 250 degree oven on the middle rack for 20 minutes.

6. After 20 minutes, remove it from the oven.

Expected Result:

Nicely crisped up leaves.

Observation and Result: 

Nicely wilted (down) leaves. Not to forget, all reduced to barely a spoonful! Sheer disaster!

:( 

Upon Tasting, however: 

Delicious, real delicious!

Back-up Plan:

I added the wilted, yet delicious swiss chard (chips!) into the matar paneer that was cooking on the stove. And well, it was matar-swiss chard paneer for dinner that evening, that tasted just fine.

Into matar paneer

Matar-Swiss Chard Paneer
Conclusion: 

1. Gotta make sure that every swiss chard leaf is DRY. Yep, yours truly was too excited, and did a pretty sloppy job of it.

2. Gotta use LOTS of it, if you want a decent amount of end product.

3. Perhaps I was a bit too hasty in the baking cycle. I found out later that after the first 20 minutes, you must turn the leaves over, and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

4. Perhaps my garden swiss chard was a little too tender, and not suitable for making chips.

5. Therefore, next time, I will just buy that bunch of that humongous swiss chard from the store- that'll definitely make good chips.

Final Note: 

Take Two coming up. I already know that it will be successful! ;)




Thursday, October 17, 2013

Swiss Chard

Here's my first crop!! Swiss Chard, purely organic, grown without any chemicals, in my very own backyard. I shall be harvesting it today. I can already tell that this is going to be delicious! :)


Look out for my next post. As soon as I cook something fantastic with these greens!