Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

Sometimes I love having lazy days, today was -partly- one of these. I got up early but stayed in my pyjamas for hours, I took a nap after lunch, enjoyed a nice summer breeze behind closed shades.
While everybody was rushing outside to the summer sales, I was listening to the birds chirping outside on the trees, I live in a small town in a quiet cul de sac, and felt like I was in the shire.

Watching 12 episods of the "Gilmore Girls" was part of my day too, therefor the title of this post. While I have seen them all already (several times), I'm still enjoying every witty comment, quirky characters and pop reference of this show. Judge me all you want, I had a great day! But a great day can't be complete without some cooking.

On this week's vegetables basket, we had some swiss chard, and I was in the mood for pie, at least something resembling it, so stumbling upon this recipe made the trick. The good thing with pie, is that you can adjust the recipe with what you have at hand and make it to your liking.
I'll definetly be making some more crostata in the future, so many ideas for sweet versions come to mind right now, oh wait... This is supposed to be a lazy day, let's do those some other time.

Swiss Chard Crostata (adapted from on a recipe from A feast for the eyes)

for the crust
300gr of Flour (T80 organic)
70gr of Parmigiano
125gr of Mascarpone
115gr of Butter
2 Eggs
1/2 a Teaspoon of Cayenne Pepper
1/2 a Teaspoon of Salt

for the filling
1 bunch of Swiss Chard (about 600gr)
2 Cloves of Garlic
Olive Oil
70gr of Comté, grated
70gr of Feta, in cubes
4 Tablespoon of Cream
100gr of Breadcrumbs
2 Eggs
Salt, Pepper, Cayenne Pepper
Sesame and Poppy seeds
1 Egg


In a food processor put the flour, the parmigiano, the mascarpone, the butter, the salt and cayenne pepper. Blitz until it gets to a crumble consistency and pour the 2 eggs down the funnel of your food processor, once the dough starts to form, tip is on a floured surface and make it into a ball.
Cover it with cling film and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Clean the swiss chard, cut the stems apart from the green leaves. In one bowl, place the stems you have quite finely dices, and in an other place the greens roughly chopped.

In a big pan, heat up some olive oil with the garlic cloves that are peeled and cut into 2. Once the garlic has a nice golden color, remove it from the oil, season with some cayenne pepper.
Now add the swiss chard stems with a couple of tablespoons of water, let them cook and stir every now and than for about 7-8 minutes.
Add the swiss chard greens on top on them, and keep cooking for about 10 minutes. Set aside to cool for a while.

Drain the swiss chard from the excess liquid. In a bowl combine the swiss chard with the comté and feta cheeses, the 2 eggs, the cream and the breadcrumbs. Mix everything well together, if it's too liquid, add some more breadcrumbs. Check for seasoning, add salt and pepper to your taste.

Preheat the oven to 190°C.

Roll out the dough on a parchement paper (about 35cm diameter) and place it on an oven tray. Pour your swiss chard mixture in the middle, even it out but leave a 5 cm space from the rim. Fold this rim on to the pie (look for the picture in case the explanation is not clear).

Make an egg wash with the remaining egg and a bit of water, brush the crust with it and sprinkle it with sesame and poppy seeds. Place it in the oven for 35-40 minutes, until the crust has a nice golden color. Serve hot or at room temperature.