Peasant Beets

I've really become a big fan of Trader Joe's washed and cut kaleidoscope chard. When I made the curried lentil and chard stew, I picked up two bags to use but only ended up using one. As a result I had a bag of chard to use up and I wanted to do something more than a simple saute or steaming. A variation of this recipe on Food 52 for French peasant beets seemed like the perfect answer. 

Everything from Trader Joe's or Costco except the wine

I made a bunch of modifications to that recipe to account for what we had at home since I had no plans to go to the grocery store to pick up goat cheese or raw beets with greens. Using the beets package we already had also made this more convenient as it eliminated a bunch of steps and waiting time. The whole thing only cost about $5:

- 2.5 tbsp butter ($0.23)
- 1 shallot ($0.25)
- 8 oz of beets ($2)
- one 10 oz bag of kaleidoscope chard ($1.99)
- 2 tbsp white wine ($0.30)
- 2 tbsp water ($0)
- salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 1/2 cup feta cheese ($0.40)

This was such a simple dish to make. First, melt butter.

Add shallots and saute.

Next add the beets (but I forgot to take a picture of them alone). Then after a few minutes, the chard.

Once everything has sauteed for about 5 minutes, add the wine and water, cover it and let it cook.

Once the greens have soaked up most of the moisture and wilted, it's all ready to go!

I tried the beets and chard both with and without feta and couldn't decide which I liked better, so I ended up sprinkling feta on half of the dish so we could compare. I think in the end the side with feta was a little bit better.

But both sides had such vibrant flavors from the beets and the chard. A nice natural sweet, salty and bitter combination that worked so well together. And the chard was so tender.

This was a really healthy side dish to go along with our baked chicken (and helped counteract our unhealthy custard and cupcake from that day). We would definitely make this again. So simple, healthy and tasty.