Weekend Herb Blogging time! Knowing Thanksgiving week would be a busy one for me, I cooked this dish earlier in the week for this enjoyable blogging event. This week Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything Once, is hosting Weekend Herb Blogging from her place in Melbourne, Australia.



The World's Healthiest Foods has a great write up of the health benefits of chard. Chard is always in season in the San Francisco Bay area according to the Bay area seasonal vegetable availability chart available at the Center for Urban Education about Sustainable Agriculture (CUESA) website, along with other good information about sustainable foods.

Chard Skillet Saute

1 large yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, sliced
2 T olive oil
6 cups chard, chopped and stalks separated
8 oz (1 box) Seitan (White Wave Stir Fried Strips, marinated in seasoned soy sauce)
5 cooked strips of bacon, patted dry of oil, sliced
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup Yoshida's Original Sweet Teriyaki Sauce

Slice the onion in quarters and cut horizontally into split-ring sections. Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is glossy and soft, then add the chard stalks. Continue sauteing, cooking down and reducing the volume. Be sure the chard stalks are soft, then add the Seitan, chopped in chunks (it comes in strips). Continue sauteing and add the bacon and pine nuts. Add the chard leaves, mine were piled HIGH above my pan, and had me worried.. but they SHRINK incredibly. Before the leaves are completely shrunk, add the Yoshida's Original Sweet Teriyaki Sauce. Serves 6ish.

Vegans could substitute Lightlife's Smokey Fakin' Bacon Tempeh strips for the bacon in the recipe.

The finished product, served in a skillet!



Chard is known for being bitter, but this rendition has a nice sweetness to it and pairs well with either rice, cous cous, or other steamed grain (polenta may be good too).

Thanksgiving Report. Thanksgiving yesterday was quite a magical event. My father and I joined Linda, Yalda and little Miss Olivia as well as Joan and Greg at the Silverado Resort for their buffet Thanksgiving feast. I brought a Ridge Monte Bello Chardonnay, 1999 and a Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay, 2004, and we enjoyed the house champagne for our Thanksgiving toast. It was so dim that the photos that others took of the group of us inside were rather blurry, but I got a good snap of Yalda opening the crayons for Olivia who were sitting across from me.