Why bother cooking it? If you throw in some dandelion, arugula, endive and chicory, you've got the groundwork for a mesclun salad.

Boil it with smoked pig feet (hamhock). Eat on toast [with cheese]. That's my catchall greens recipe.

Bake (or parboil) some potatoes. Slice them gratin-style, slightly thicker. Alternate layers of potato with a layer of (uncooked) chard and then a layer of the cheese(s) of your choice - gorgonzola, gruyere, feta, swiss, mozarella, whatever you want. Add some green onions to the mix if you like that. After each layer, brush on a little melted butter to the top of the potato/chard. Top at last with cheese and breadcrumbs. Pop it in the oven at 350-ish for 15 minutes. Delicious as hell.

IT's a staple in my house because my garden just keeps producing it in bushels. The ways I usually make it:

1. Just chopped and sauteed as a side with a clove of garlic in olive oil, finished with a squirt of lemon and some black pepper. After sauteeing for a moment, throw in a half cup of water and cover the pan with a lid to let it steam a bit. Otherwise it can be a little tough.

2. Gratineed, kind of like SassHat's delicious sounding recipe, but just by itself. Make a bechamel, add some gruyere, blanch some chard and load into a pan with sauce and breadcrumbs. Yum.

3. The best full-meal option: blanch chopped chard and set aside. Crumble hot Italian sausage into a pan with some o/o and garlic and brown meat. When browned, add 1 can (or equivalent) cannelini (white beans, Great Northerns, whatever they're called where you are) and chard. Pour in a cup or two of chicken broth and allow to reduce. This makes a fantastic, healthy soup with some crusty bread on the side. Finish with hot pepper flakes and grated parm.

I think I'll braise some today, as suggested in Miko's first recipe.

I like the look of this, and will probably buy some steak on the way home tomorrow.

I usually use Miko's first recipe, though the version I have has you chop the stems, sautee those with some olive oil for a few minutes, then throw in the minced garlic clove, then 30 seconds later add the chopped leaves. Then add water, cover, and braise for a few minutes.

Yum yum yum yum yum yum yum!

I also bought a smoked chicken breast at the market, so will incorporate that into a chardy recipe too.

Mmm mmm mmm. These all sound so good.

I apologize in advance for the length of this comment: we eat a lot of greens around here, and have a few favorite simple ways to cook them.

One thing I had to learn the hard way: wash your greens very well. I do this by swishing them around in a sink half-full of cool water, then lifting the greens out to a bowl or colander, draining the sandy water, then repeating the process two more times. A good test to be sure the greens are perfectly clean: tear off a tiny bit and taste it. If there's the faintest suspicion of grit, wash the greens again.

I like to blanch the greens as soon as they're home from the market. Blanching softens the sometimes harsh edge of their pungency, helps them retain a bright green color, and shrinks down the leafy mass for easier storage in the fridge. Just bring a big pot of water to a rolling boil, drop in a spoonful of salt, and drop the greens in for a minute or two (kale needs longer to turn tender, but never more than five or six minutes, or it turns drab green), then shock in cold water, drain well, and refrigerate.

A favorite way to serve them: heat a tiny sliver of butter and a nickel-sized pour of olive oil in a saute pan. Add a curl of lemon zest (no pith!), a bit of crumbled oregano, a sprinkle of chili powder or a tiny bit of cayenne, and a generous grating of nutmeg; toast for a minute. (Sometimes, I saute mushrooms at this stage. That's a favorite, and when I brought it to Thanksgiving last month, my siblings groaned in delight over it. Yes, over greens.)

Add the well-drained greens and toss in the pan. Press a clove of garlic into the pan atop the greens, then toss and toss and toss over the heat. The moisture from the greens steams the garlic to soften its flavor rather than searing it brown and acrid against the pan.

Take off the heat and squirt in a bit of lemon juice, then a palmful of shaved parmesan and plenty of coarse black pepper. Toss. Serve.

We also make this as a pasta dish: gemelli or penne tossed with the greens, plenty of parmesan, and a ladleful of pasta water. It's fantastic.

On the rare occasions that we have leftovers of this dish (with or without mushrooms, with or without pasta), I do exactly what Miko suggests: make a gratinee of it with bechamel, though I like to simmer the bechamel with sherry and garlic, and sometimes I replace the breadcrumbs with ground nuts.

I also like to stir blanched, chopped greens into a simple cannellini-garbanzo soup rich with onions, garlic, and rosemary, as noted here. My oh my, that is good soup, and I think I'll make some today to sustain us through the coming snowstorm.

Snowstorm!

Wow, Else, the mushroom recipe sounds fabulous.

These all sound so good. Elsa, you've inspired me. Think I'll get some chard from the garden right now and make that up (my house-sitter left some mushrooms in the fridge).

That chard-mushroom dish is nothing more than a variation of the first treatment Miko suggests, but I have a funny affection for it: I made it the first time The Fella and I went to the farmers' market together. A few weeks later, it was the first dish he asked me to teach him. It's a staple of our diet now.

Sometimes I make a giant enormous huge and also big batch of whole wheat penne with greens & mushrooms. The next day, I toss the leftover pasta with a highly seasoned bechamel, a scant handful each of cheddar & mozzarella, a scoop of ricotta if it's around, and plenty of blanched broccoli. Served with a side of roasted squash (I am totally self-linking this due to deliciousness) and some corn bread or popovers, it's a very cozy winter dinner.

I've been meaning to try the treatment of chard stems that occhiblu describes (we eat more beet greens, and those stems are too tough), and it sounds dreamy.

elizard, a friend brought me the last batch of chard from her garden this autumn, and it was amazing: so fresh and crisp and creamy-stemmed, quite different from what we get even at the farmers' market.

Ooh! I rescued the last of the broccoli from under the snow when I was down there, including the one and only head of ej's mysterious pointy cauliflower broccoli (I planted late this year). And I have squash! And leftover corn bread! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. (After a week of hearty but meat-and-fat-heavy farm eating, I'm ready for some vegetable goodness.)

Miko's third recipe is one of my stand-bys -- substitute the chard for escarole and you have a classic Italian dish.

Swiss chard is awesome. Too good to muck about with IMO - just wilt it as you would spinach, season and serve (I like to wash it thoroughly, don't dry it - just toss it into a very, very hot iron wok and stirfry for 20 secs until just wilted). A small knob of butter, salt and pepper is all it needs. A few drops of balsamic vinegar and shavings of parmesan if you absolutely have to.

Oven to 350F.
Cut up 6 or so slices of bacon into bite-sizes pieces and brown in an oven-proof, straight sided-pan.
Remove bacon and set aside, using 1T or 2T of bacon fat in the pan, drop in 1/2 a diced onion, a smashed clove of garlic and several handfuls of chopped chard. On medium-high heat, keep turning the chard with tongs until it wilts and add more chard until all gone (you can use 4-6 C of chopped chard). Salt and pepper to taste.

Add back in the bacon and about 6 of 8 ounces of grated cheese (for this I'd use havarti or gouda), reseverving 2 ounces. Pour in 3 eggs beaten with 1 1/2C milk. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on the top. Into the oven for 35 minutes.