Friday, June 17, 2011

Swiss Chard Pizza

Lets face it, Swiss Chard is pretty. Purples and yellows mixing with and accenting the green leaf helps to add a bit of color to our garden. Surprisingly it also adds quite a bit of flavor to one of our more unique pizzas too. Eric was a little hesitant at first, as he is more of a pizza purist (he believes that pepperoni is really the only topping a good pizza needs). How did he actually react? 3 slices later he just couldn't eat any more, so he had another for good measure. With that said, we're finally gearing up for house 2.0: making our house a full blown grown up person's house. Kind of a scary thought, that whole growing up thing but something thats got to happen at some point. It will actually be fun to give the whole house an overhaul, which should be finished just in time for our desire to change something else all over again.






Swiss Chard Pizza
What you will need

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 1/4 pounds onions, diced
1 teaspoon thyme leaves, chopped (fresh if possible)
2 garlic cloves minced
1/2 pound shredded destemmed swiss chard
1 14" pizza crust (a great recipe is here by the Brown Eyed Baker)
1/2 cup of grated Parmesan 
3/4 cup ricotta
1 egg yolk

Give yourself about 30 minutes with the oven at 500*. Heat your olive oil in a large cast iron skillet over medium heat. Toss in your onions and cook them down until they are nice and tender. Add the thyme, garlic and a good hefty pinch of salt, lower your heat and cook another 10-20 minutes until the onions are a nice golden brown. Remove and set aside.

Wash your chard and destem. Put a pot of water, on the stove salt it and set it to boil. Prepare an ice bath in another bowl. Blanch your chard for a minute or two, then quickly get it into the ice bath. Drain thoroughly and dice. Mix into your onions along with the cheeses and egg yolk.

Prepare your pizza dough, making sure you get a pie about 14" across, then spread your cheese mixture, leaving enough space at the edge for the crust to rise.

Bake for 10 - 15 minutes until the crust is nicely browned.

Eat. Enjoy.

8 comments:

  1. Love chard (especially the rainbow variety which it looks like you have, too). I would never have thought of this pizza recipe. Thanks and good luck on house 2.0.

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  2. Oh, that rainbow chard IS pretty! And great idea to use ricotta!

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  3. I love this idea so much! I have chard from the garden and leftover ricotta (and would you believe it, a leftover egg yolk too!)

    So happy your chard leaves from the garden are free of holes :)

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  4. I am a HUGE swiss chard fan, though I never thought of putting it on pizza, so smart! Oh, and I <3 your shark pizza cutter. :)

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  5. Great pizza idea, looks delicious. I will need to try this.

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  6. What a beautiful pizza! I have been getting LOADS of greens in my weekly CSA box and this will be a great way to put them to good use. Bookmarking this to try soon.

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  7. (it should be noted my BF loves your pizza cutter)

    Now, on to the comment :D We have a ton of swiss chard coming in beautifull this year and I am looking for things to do with it. I've never tried it before! This looks like a great place to start.

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  8. That looks amazing, and delicious, and I MUST get one of those pizza cutters! Never would have thought to put chard on pizza, but I like it!

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