swiss chard & rye poğaça

While gardening mostly seems to be suffering from lack of success, it is occasionally a  problem when you only do what you’re actually good at. (Relatively speaking, that is.) For us it is growing potatoes, beets and Swiss chard. And so the bounty of Swiss chard never ends.

There have been a couple new things though. This spring my grandparents’ asparagus actually resulted in a few skinny and flavourful stalks. They looked very alien: the little antennae peek above the surface with no warning. Not like radishes or beets that let you know there is a bulb hiding below the leaves, and not like a leafy green that happily reveal their whole growth and development, from first leaves to buttery heads, above the surface. For asparagus, there is no hint of the  vasculature supposedly buried and just napping beneath the soil. The first sign is the asparagus stalk itself, initially a bit shy, but then content to grow upwards, willy nilly.

The few stalks were snipped off and eaten right away. Cool, a bit sweet and crisp. Unsubstantial, but who knows what will appear without warning next year…

Until then I’m more concerned with how to use up the Swiss chard we’ve been growing.

I saw these Turkish pastries on Linda’s perpetually inspirational blog, La Petite Panière–and a perfect opportunity to stuff some of this never ending Swiss chard bounty into a pastry.

The dough was different than I was used to and initially a bit strange to work with, but it baked up wonderfully. Mine had less gluten, probably due to the dark rye flour, which meant that the pastry cracked during baking and didn’t have the same smooth finish as did Linda’s. But it was biscuity, tender and crisp, and the baking powder ensured that it became light and aerated.

Due to the moisture of the filling, I could have baked it for a bit longer as the pastry right under the filling needed a bit more time–say 50-60 minutes instead of the 40 minutes I baked them for.Suprisingly, despite all the Swiss chard, I really liked the filling. While a nice pastry filling, I would happily eat right away without baking it into the pastries. The labneh and parsley ensure that it tastes sharp, cool and refreshing.

swiss chard poğaça: Find the recipe at La Petite Panière,