Sometimes the oddest things happen.  Earlier this week I was in the local neighborhood picking up some lunch for Lily and me. It was a beautiful day and I had walked down to the sandwich shop with Lily in her stroller.   I was just minding my own business when two Chinese women stopped to admire my little Lily, or so I thought.  Yes, they admired her for a couple of seconds but then turned their attention to me and starting talking to me in rapid fire Chinese.  (Hint: I don’t speak Chinese, nor do I look like I might speak Chinese.)  Finally I was able to understand that they wanted to sell me some Swiss chard, two bunches for $5 to be precise. They only had two bunches to sell—was I the last person in a long line of Swiss chard eaters that they had sold to today?  Did I look like I needed to eat something green, and a lot of it?  How on earth did they pick a chef out of all the people walking on the sidewalk?   I guess I will never know.

I did buy the Swiss Chard from them—as they mentioned they were a lot cheaper than the local Safeway.   Since I now had an enormous bunch of Swiss Chard to cook, I looked through my recipes and decided to make the Southern French tart called ‘Tourte aux Blettes’, or Swiss Chard Tart.  This tart is both savory and sweet. For that reason children often like it.  It is lovely with the inclusion of raisins and pine nuts.  In France it is often served for dessert, but I think that it is a lovely introduction into the world of leafy greens.

Swiss Chard Tart

Adapted From epicurious.com

This is traditionally a double crust tart.  However, I only had one pie crust left and in the name of time and cutting calories decided to make an open faced tart.

½ cup golden raisins

1 cup of water

1/3 cup pine nuts, toasted

2# of Swiss chard, stems discarded

½ cup heavy cream

1 egg

1 ½ Tbsp. sugar

Zest from one orange

Pastry dough for a single crust (or double if you prefer.)

9” tart pan

Preheat the oven to 400F

Combine the raisins and water in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil, remove from the heat and set aside to plump for 1 hour.  Drain and pat the raisins dry.

Blanch the Swiss chard in a large pot of salted boiling water.  This will take about 5 minutes or so.  The greens will be limp and bright green still. Drain the Swiss chard, rinse and squeeze out the excess water.  Chop.

Combine the egg, cream, sugar and orange zest.  Add the raisins, pine nuts and Swiss chard. Season with salt and pepper.

Roll out the dough and place in the tart pan.  Spread the filling over the crust and bake for 40 minutes.  Remove the tart from the oven and let rest for 10 minutes.

Enjoy!  I would serve this with a salad for a light dinner.  This tart is hearty enough to serve with a light bodied pinot noir or a rose.