I have a standard procedure I use with the plethora of greens that come in my CSA, especially during the winter and spring. This recipe applies to all of the softer greens – chard, spinach, beet greens, turnip greens, etc. I generally don’t use collards or kale in this combo because the cooking times are different.

In a nutshell, I braise, chop, and saute them with garlic. Then I use them as a side dish or a filling, often in crepes. That’s what I did yesterday:

Stem and wash. This particular combo is rainbow chard and beet greens. Nummy!

Braise (boil) until barely wilted - 30 seconds to a couple of minutes.

Drain and rinse in cool water to halt the cooking process. Remember, you're going to saute them so you don't want them overcooked. Squeeze out the excess water.

Roughly chopped garlic.

Sautee in olive oil (I added some white onion from this week's CSA box).

Coarsely chop your greens and add them to the pan.

Fry it all up together for a few minutes until the greens are infused with the garlic.

There you have it! Sauteed greens, ready for action.

So at this point you can put them in whatever you want. Quiche, frittata, omelets, whatever. My favorite use for them is crepes. I’m not going to give you a primer on crepes because Alton Brown does it so dang well. That’s how I learned how to make ’em, and they’re dang easy:

So now you have your crepes. This is what I do with them:

A handful of greens, slice of ham, slice of cheese.

Fold the sides in, and flip over. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and bake at 350 for about 14 minutes. Yum!

Proportions are going to vary depending on how much stuff you have. I used a big bunch of chard and a small bunch of beet greens. I stretched that to fill about 5 crepes. My standard crepe recipe makes about 8-10 medium crepes.

This may seem like a lot of prep, but it goes pretty fast and you can make the greens and crepe batter well in advance. You can also cook the crepes, fold in quarters, and refrigerate in a ziplock back for several days. Sometimes I add an egg to the recipe and serve them for breakfast!