62 MensHealth.com | December 2016
fibrous for you and the texture is otherwise to your liking,
keep the stalks and use them. If you like the idea of them
but are concerned that 6-inch lengths of armored plant mat-
ter might be too much, maybe chop them down to bite-size
pieces. Or if you’re grimly masticating and wondering when
it’ll end, just toss the stalks in the garbage and move on.
At this point you’ll need to grab a square baking dish and
decide which leftover vegetables you want to add. Your egg-
and-chard bake will be delicious just as it is, but it will be
even more amazing if you spend five minutes caramel izing
some chopped taco-night onion with a bit of minced garlic.
Toss that right into the dish. Or you could throw the florets
of your forgotten broccoli back into that steam for a couple
of minutes and then into the dish. Or strips of roasted bell
pepper and maybe a pinch or two of red-pepper flakes could
find their way on and around the chard. Or some crumbled
bacon. Or hey, all of the above.
Point is, once your baking dish is loaded to your satisfac-
tion with chard and the other stuff you felt like throwing in
there, pour the beaten eggs and cheese over everything and
shake on some salt and pepper. Bake it in a 350°F oven until
the eggs are set and the top is golden brown. This will take
at least a half hour and maybe as long as an hour, but at this
point your work is done. Check on it now and then and, once
it’s cooked, haul it out of the oven and give it 10 minutes on
the counter to cool before you dig in. That’s it.
You may be skeptical that this fridge-scavenging could
produce something worthwhile, but then you will take that
first bite, and, whoa: delicious. It has most of what you enjoy
about quiche—the fluffy, salty, rich, eggy flavor, the happy
bits of treasure studded throughout. It’s packed with chard,
so it will also be rich in fiber and nutrients, and there’s no
crust, so it will fit whatever keto-gluten-free-Atkins-franken-
diet happens to be sweeping the nation.
Whichever way you make this dish, do it in private. When
people try it, they will look at you with newfound respect.
But if they knew how easy it was to make, the jig would be up.Good food doesn’t get much simpler than this recipe.
First, you’ll need a few things that aren’t chard: eggs, olive
oil, and a hard Italian cheese, like Pecorino Romano. Feel free
to use this project as an excuse to clean out your fridge and
pantry too. Got half an onion left over from taco night? Great.
Some lonely broccoli in the produce drawer? Perfect.
And you’ll need some chard. Buy two big bundles. In the
produce aisle, you can spot it among the other prehistoric-
looking leafy greens by its pinkish red or sunny yellow stalks.
At home, rinse the leaves and lay them on a cutting board.
Use a sharp knife to trim off some of each stalk because,
although fiber is good for you and you may discover that the
stalk is surprisingly tasty, it is undeniably the less delicious
part. Now that you are a grownup, no one can make you eat
the whole plant if you don’t want to.
Trim the stalk by cutting a little V at the bottom of the leaf
and removing the leaf from the bulkiest part of the stalk.
This will ensure that you have some of that colorful, fibrous
spine of the leaf, which will contribute to a bright, hearty
dish. But don’t discard the separated sections of stalk; hang
onto them for a few minutes.
Take a big pot, add about an inch of water to it, and set
it over high heat. It’ll boil real quick; now throw in all the
chard pieces (including the stalks) and slap on the lid. You’re
steaming the chard in order to soften it, and no part of the
plant will benefit more from this softening than the stalks.
Give it, say, eight or 10 minutes; then check on it. The leaves
should have wilted significantly but not turned to mush. Pull
the leafy sections out. As for the bare stalks, plan on giving
them another five to seven minutes in the steam, or until
they’re loose and floppy—kind of like very thick, colorful
al dente pasta. Then cut the heat and pull everything out of
the steam and back onto your cutting board to cool.
While the chard is cooling, beat six eggs till frothy and
grate a half cup of that hard Italian cheese; add it to the eggs.
Next, take a bite of one of the cooked stalks. If it’s not too
YOU SAY
FRITTATA...
I say egg
bake. Chard’s
bitterness
offsets the
creamy eggs
and sharp
Italian cheese.Once you know how
to cook things, healthy
eating almost always
means better eating.
Why Are Dark Leafy
Greens So Healthy?
Chard, kale, spinach, mustard greens,
collards—these are where nutrients
g o t o p a r t y. A l l a r e r i c h i n f i b e r. T h e y a l s o
contain phytonutrients called caroten-
oids, which have been shown to prevent
cancer by battling cell-damaging free
radicals, according to the American
Institute for Cancer Research. We say
eat two to four 2-cup servings a day.Food styling: Michelle Gatton/Stockland Martel; James Ransom/Offset (cutting)Food + Nutrition