Dark Days of Winter: Potato and Chard Stalk Gratin

True confessions--I have never eaten chard before. When I saw a beautiful basket of rainbow chard at the farmers' market last week, I decided I needed to introduce myself to it, especially since I had to come up with a vegetarian dish for this week's Dark Days Challenge. The beautifully-colored chard was a great antidote to the Challenge slump I'd written about a month ago. I'm also still working my way through the bag of local potatoes I bought at the farmers' market, so when I found this potato and chard stalk gratin recipe, I thought the combination would be great.

{potato and chard stalk gratin}

In order to comply with the Challenge rules and make up for some poor planning on my part, I made several modifications to the recipe:

1. I cut the recipe in half.
2. I don't have local Gruyere cheese, so I decided to use Piedmont, a yummy sheep's milk cheese from the Everona Dairy in VA. (side note: when I pulled Piedmont out of the fridge, it had gotten moldy, and not the good kind of cheese mold (I don't think I stored it properly), and I had to break open another Everona Dairy cheese that I'd been saving for a different recipe. The cheese I ended up using had cracked pepper already in it so I cut down the amount of pepper I put in the gratin).
3. I excluded garlic because the local cloves I had stored had gone bad as well.
4. I didn't hunt down a source of local flour for the 2 teaspoons that the recipe calls for to make the bechamel. This plus olive oil, salt, and pepper were the only ingredients that didn't come from my garden or local farmers.
5. I included a few chard leaves as well, even though the recipe only calls for the stalks.

I am now a fan of chard! I liked it, and still have more leaves to use in another dish. This was also my first attempt at making a gratin, and it turned out really well! However, next time I will make sure I have fresh garlic before I cook because I think the dish could have used some garlic. I'll also add more thyme, more chard leaves, and more pepper. I went light on the pepper because the cheese had black pepper in it, and I was afraid to over-season. But I think it could have used more. I tend to under-season in my cooking.

March is the last month of the Dark Days Challenge. I still have chicken breasts, ground beef, a rib-eye, and some vegetables stored in the freezer for the remainder of my meals. I have found great local sources of eggs, milk, and cheese, so I'm looking forward to the last few weeks. Oh, and I still have about 3 pounds of potatoes left.