Baked potatoes are the bomb.  Rub the potatoes down with oil, sprinkle with sea salt, and stick ‘em in the over, and I am happy.  And that’s why, at a job where food not eaten by students is inexplicably dumped in the trash, I advised the chef to give the leftovers to me, rather than the garbage.  And so I ended up with a huge Ziploc freezer back full of baked potatoes.

Which was fine because I had too much work to do last night to try to figure out some way to make that CSA squash palatable to Shannon, who ranks squash somewhere along the lines of gruel.  Still, we had a bunch of new CSA greens, too.  What to do?

Jalapeño-Rosemary Lemon Chard Baked Potatoes, that’s what to do.  Shannon was skeptical of the flavor profile, but part of my job is to propose ideas and suggestions Shannon is skeptical of and then overcome the odds.  It took about forty-five minutes to make (mostly due to washing and chopping everything), a time frame that would probably have been shorter if I wasn’t listening to All Things Considered and just kind of unwinding, and the end result was a brightly flavorful and filling dinner with a little bit of heat and a fresh, slightly crunchy aspect to the expected earthiness of the potato.  It was kind of a nice new take on the stolid tuber.

Jalapeño-Rosemary Lemon Chard Baked Potatoes

• 1 large green jalapeño, finely chopped, with 7 or 8 of the seeds retained
• 5 sprigs rosemary, leaves finely chopped
• 1 bunch of Swiss chard, leaved separated from stalk and roughly chopped and stalk cut into ¼ pieces
• greens from 1 bunch of carrots (because they were just there looking at me from the table), heavy stems removed, finely chopped*
• 1 orange pepper, finely chopped
• juice of 2 lemons
• olive oil & butter
• garlic
• salt & pepper
• feta cheese
• 2 baked potatoes

Sauté crushed garlic (I used the three cloves we had on hand and later added garlic powder) and the jalapeño in approx 1 tbs of olive oil over low heat for 3 or 4 minutes.  Add the chard stems, sweet orange pepper, rosemary, and a small pat of butter (approx ½ tbs).  Sauté for 4 or 5 minutes until the chard and peppers are still brightly colored but mostly booked.  Add chard leaves and carrot greens, salt and pepper, and the lemon juice.  Sauté for approx 2 minutes.

Cut open the baked potatoes (I just reheated ours in the microwave for 4 minutes), lay in the greens, top with crumbled feta, and eat.

*Now I understand that folks are like, “There’s no way I’m eating the frilly green tops on top of carrots; I’m throwing that shit away.”  But trust me.  If you chop them finely, they just mix in with all of the other greens you have going and take on whatever flavor you’ve got going. They’re high in Vitamin K and chlorophyll.  Speaking of chlorophyll, I feel like I read somewhere along the line an interview in which Susan Sarandon talks about taking a chlorophyll supplement every day to keep her healthy.  Have you looked at Susan Sarandon lately?  Do you know how old she is?!  So, yeah, get that chlorophyll.