Baked Chard Orbs

I was given 800g of rainbow chard.  A kind gift for some volunteer work at a city centre community garden, but what to do with it?

I was just about to go to visit my family in a couple of days so felt I had to do something with the free chard or they may be wasted, but what to cook?

I recently came upon a courgette polpette recipe and thought I would tweak it slightly and use the chard in a similar way. 

This dish just uses the stalks.

1.  Dice the stalks and chop some onions or shallots.  Lightly fry for 10 minutes.

2.  Chop a couple of chillies and several garlic cloves (for the flavouring)

3.  Crack open a couple of eggs and whisk

4.  Put the chopped chillies, garlic cloves and eggs in a mixing bowl.

5.  Add 100g bread crumbs and 100g goats cheese to the mixing bowl.

6.  The stalks and chopped onions should be ready to add to the mixture now.

7.  Get a tin tray ready and grease it.  Then turn on the oven to preheat at 200 degrees centigrade.

8.  Next make sure the mixture in the bowl is well mixed and evenly distributed.  Then make the orb shapes out of the mixture with your hands.

9.  Place the orbs on the tin tray and then place in the oven for about 10 - 20 minutes.  (Check them after 10 minutes). Remove them from the oven when they are golden brown.


Ingredients I used for this recipe

500g chard stalks (or a good crop of chard stalks, I'm sure 200g would work perfectly well)
5 shallots
Garlic bulb
100g bread crumbs (best from home made fresh bread)
100g crumbly goats cheese
2 eggs

Have you got any great ideas for excess chard?

Fritatta with chard

My garden is being kind enough to give me a weekly bounty of chard leaves.  So today I was trying to think what else I could do with them.  I usually use them as a salad leaf but today the thought came to me to try them in a fritatta.

I love fritattas - they make great lunch box food.  You don't even need to heat them up to eat them.  It'll be one meal in the day when I don't have to cook and sometimes days get that little bit hectic that I just need a prepared lunch.

Here's the recipe:

6 rashes of bacon cut into bacon bits (lightly fried)
2 Onions (lightly fried)
Broken up bits of goat cheese
25g Chard leaves
8 eggs
Cheddar cheese for grating

1.  Fry the bacon bits and onions
2.  In a large metal wok type pan (that can be used in the oven later on)  combine the bacon, onions, 8 eggs, goats cheese, chard leaves and mix together
3.  Place on a medium heat and fry (without disturbing) to allow the egg to bond everything together
4.  Once it all looks like its started to firm up add the grated cheddar cheese on the top.
5.  Place in the oven at a temperature of 180 degrees centigrade.

6.  When the cheddar on the top is golden brown it is ready to take out of the oven