Do you like to eat greens or want to know how to incorporate more into your diet? First, you have to make sure you buy a variety of them when you go grocery shopping. Swiss chard, kale, beet greens, collards, dandelion, radish, mustard etc. I love them all and make sure to stock up and use them in the appropriate order so that nothing goes to waste. Start with your tenderest greens and save the hardier ones for later in the week or next. I generally find swiss chard to be good for about a week in my fridge and I especially love to buy the red or rainbow chard because they’re so beautiful.
After defrosting some ground turkey for dinner, I realized I had some chard that needed to be used up. Time to eat greens. My anchor ingredients had been chosen. What should I do with those items? Michael requested pasta, so that defined the direction I would go with this meal. What else could round out this dish? I had part of a can of peeled tomatoes and the end of a carton of chicken broth left in the fridge, so I pulled those out. I was in the mood for some warming spices, so I took a few out of my cabinet. Cooking without a recipe is this simple. Experiment with combining different ingredients to find out how much you like to eat greens.
Putting It All Together
While I boiled the water for the linguine, I browned the ground turkey in a large skillet with grapeseed oil. Then I added some chopped onion and garlic to sauté. Seasoned with salt, cloves, allspice and nutmeg. Poured in some red wine, scraping up all the browned bits to let that simmer and reduce. I added a couple of those canned tomatoes and smashed them into the mixture. Then added the chicken broth. At this point, I decided to add a little more depth of flavor with part of a chicken liver from my treasure chest of freezer gems. So I chiseled out a couple of small chunks with a butter knife and tossed them into the sauce, smashing them to incorporate as they cooked. Just before the noodles were done, I added the chard and covered so it could wilt down.
Using tongs, I removed the pasta from the boiling pot and mixed them with the sauce in the skillet. This was a delicious meal, prompting my husband to ask what spices I used. I don’t use cloves often enough and they’re amazing with meat and greens like this. Allspice and nutmeg also. Let me know what you think and how you like to eat greens.
Ingredients:
- pasta
- grapeseed oil
- ground turkey
- swiss chard
- onion
- garlic
- canned tomatoes
- chicken broth
- dry red wine
- chicken liver
- cloves
- allspice
- nutmeg
- salt
Want to experiment with beet greens? Read this next for inspiration.