The farmers market is full of greens right now; everything from broccoli to lettuces, spinach, and Swiss chard. Have you ever eaten Swiss chard? It is a gorgeous, dark, leafy vegetable with brightly colored stems that are red, yellow or orange.

Our favorite way to eat it is wilted. To make wilted Swiss chard, you fry three strips of bacon in a large skillet until crisp. Remove the bacon and to the hot grease add one tbs sugar and two tbs apple cider vinegar. Mix that well and add four generous handfuls of chopped swiss chard. Put a lid on the skillet to help the greens wilt (about five minutes). Before serving, give the greens a good toss to make sure they are covered in the delicious bacon dressing. Serve with a slice of cornbread and a glass of tea, and you’ve got yourself a meal fit for a king.

Please note, when you add the cider vinegar to the bacon grease, it will spatter. Be sure to watch for that and wear an apron, and don’t make this meal while wearing your church clothes and risk ruining them- like I did.

That leads me to my next thought,  Aprons; Do you wear them? If you don’t, you should. I have messed up many outfits because I didn’t take the time to quickly cover myself with an apron. I recently made a new one with a feed sack that I purchased at an antique store.

After tearing off the old label from the sack, I cut out the strings that held it together and washed it well. The cloth was so large that I was able to make two aprons out of it. It has a pattern of sailboats and lighthouses and looks similar to the patterns that I have seen in photographs from the 1930’s. I showed it to my grandmother (who wore feed sack dresses when she was a girl) and she said she thought she remembered the pattern. Now, it is one of my favorites.

That’s the news from the homestead, see you next week!