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 Continue reading →