Last Friday I returned from two weeks in Indiana to find my garden was huge and full of weeds. My Swiss Chard leaves had grown larger than my hand! It's no surprise Kansas is hot and dry. I've found that Swiss Chard handles the heat much better than spinach which bolts to seed quickly. Last summer it lasted well all summer long despite 100+ degree temps. Swiss Chard is very similar in taste to spinach if it is picked when it's small. But these leaves are bigger than my hand and the taste is starting to turn bitter. Even if everyone in my ate salads morning, noon and night it would take us a while to get through this amount of Swiss Chard.
I just hate the idea of throwing away food from the garden.
I stumbled across this recipe for a Spinach Smoothie and figured Swiss Chard would work just as well. I mixed up a batch; it wasn't bad but it wasn't great either and it definitely wasn't anything my kids were impressed with.
So I tweaked it and hit gold!
Or green in this case.
Monster Smoothies
Place the following in a blender.
1 cup milk
1/2 cup yogurt
2 sliced bananas (frozen sliced if you prefer)
2 HEAPING tablespoons of peanut butter
3 T honey (or so, I didn't measure this)
Pack in the remaining blender space with spinach/swiss chard.
Blend until liquified.
May the Wild Rumpus BEGIN!
"Let me try!!"
"Mmmmm....yummy!"
Yap: "Hey let me have some!"
Yahoo: "NO!!" *gulp gulp*
Yap: "Ah maaaan!"
Yahoo: "Oh, okay...Here you go!"
Yap: "Yum yum!"
Yap: "Do I look like a monster yet?"
We took half of this batch and made popsicles from them. They were even better than the smoothie.
I know, I know...it really looks gross. Honestly though it doesn't taste any different than a peanut butter banana smoothie. Anyway, calling it a Monster Smoothie makes it a whole lot more fun to eat!
Most importantly though...I'm making a huge dent in my garden's Swiss Chard!!
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