The Cheese at the End of the Rainbow

Bietole a Coste Colorate, Gratinate con Camembert

Rainbow Swiss Chard Gratin with Camembert

Just a few simple vegetables for supper this evening... very colorful ones, but simply leafy "greens" to all extents and purposes... even though they were only half green at the most! The rest of them was in spectacular technicolor!

This colored chard is of course no different in taste to regular white and green chard... but who can resist taking a rainbow home with them?

And admittedly, the end-result is hardly something that can be described as "beautiful"... but it CAN be described as amazingly delicious! Which is equally - or even in fact much MORE important than the way it looks!

But like all good parents, I love this little baby of mine as much as any of my others- hehe!

This was a small bunch of chard I suppose- but as I was eating alone it was plenty- just look at those lovely long and thick stalks! There were 4 full-sized stalks and a little extra- and that made for a big enough portion for 2, to be honest. 

Otherwise, all I needed was a good sized onion, a half of a Camembert cheese, about a cupful of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, nutmeg and olive oil.

It's one of those ugly yet beautiful comfort food creations, where it is more about the way you feel after eating it than how you feel looking at it- haha!

And yet, yes, I do actually find this super-appetizing with that cheesy golden topping!

To make it, I simply trimmed the stalks from the leaves, cut them into bite-sized pieces and sautéed them in olive oil, with plenty of salt and pepper together with the onion, for 4-5 minutes. I cut the onion into rather large slices and fried everything until it became translucent and juicy.

I then added the leaves on top, which I did not shake dry after washing, and simply tore into medium-sized pieces. Of course these will wild-down considerably during cooking. I popped them in, added a sprinkle of salt, popped on the lid and let them cook for 3-4 minutes.

After 3-4 minutes, I added plenty of freshly grated nutmeg, gave everything a toss to get it well seasoned and then grabbed myself a baking dish to finish it off.

Straight into the baking dish it all went, nice and moist and steaming hot.

I then added the bread crumbs, which of course absorb the moisture of the chard and laid out the Camembert, cut into slices on top. I seasoned with pepper and nutmeg, drizzled it lightly with olive oil and baked it for 15 minutes at 200°C until the top was lovely and golden brown.

And you really can't complain at that... it still looks pretty amazing to me!

Crispy, crunchy, cheesy, nutmeggy and just plain yummy. Not bad for a bunch of green leaves, eh?

Not bad at all!