Swiss chard

J is a big fan of swiss chard, a green-leafy vegetable. I had never eaten nor heard of this, and had to look up the translation fro Spanish when trying to find recipes (it's acelgas for all of you Spanish readers). I'd done empanadas and pastries with swiss chard, but never soup, it's still a fairly new ingredient to me.

It's really easy to cook with, here's what I ended up doing:

Browning half of a large onion, with two crushed cloves of garlic. When nice and brown, add the chopped swiss chard, I used a little more than half a bunch (the rest had been added to the famous tortilla from Sunday's post).

Add a can of beans, I used white kidney beans. I have to say I was nervous about this, I had never added beans to a soup before. Then add your stock, I used cubes, as usual, and about 2 litres of water. Then a lot of fresh ground pepper went into this puppy, as I turned up the heat and brought it to a boil. A few handfuls of whole wheat macaroni went in, and I cooked it until the macaroni was done.

The result? De.li.cious. J was skeptical at the beginning, having never had soup with pasta, I think he's convinced though.