grilled cheese with spring greens

It's transitioning from Winter to Spring, and in California that means greens are plentiful. They are seasonal year-round here, but we get an abundance of them in our box during the colder months. Sometimes there just aren't enough of each individual greens to make a recipe, so we combine them. This recipe is a combination of greens, but could be made with any one of them individually and still be awesome.

I was going to use Parmesan in this recipe, but I really wanted a different flavor. So I went over to the cheese counter at work and asked some suggestions. Hazel Rue immediately suggested Piave, and I totally agreed, and we are sure glad I did. Piave is an Italian cheese from the north eastern region of the country. While it does have some hints of Parmesan, it has a very robust and unique flavor all its own. Thanks Hazel Rue!

Ingredients:
1 bunch dandelion greens, roughly chopped
1 bunch red chard, roughly chopped
1 bunch Swiss chard, roughly chopped
6 Tbsp grated Piave cheese
3 spring red onions, cut in 1/2 inch pieces
2 Tbsp garlic confit oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot over medium heat add your oil and spring onions. Saute for 5 minutes until the onions have released a good deal of their moisture, but aren't fully cooked. Add the chards and stir so that the greens cook evenly. When there is room in the pot, toss in your dandelion greens and continue stirring until all greens are fully cooked, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and top with cheese.


Now, this is an amazing side dish. I ate it totally on its own the next day. But, we really didn't have much else in the house this particular night that we felt like eating. Earlier at work, the owner of the company that makes our sandwich bread brought me a loaf of their new organic sourdough rye bread to take home and test out. So I thought, what is better than a grilled cheese sandwich? A grilled cheese with some awesome tasting greens! So I grabbed some slices of swiss, put some garlic confit oil in a frying pan, stuffed the sandwich with the greens and fried it up. It was so tasty!