POTATO AND SWISS CHARD GRATIN

Enough for 4-6 as a side

2 pounds red or yellow potatoes

1 cup plain almond milk

½ cup white or cannellini beans

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari

4-6 cloves of garlic, minced*

1 small bunch of swiss chard**

1 medium yellow onion, chopped

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 1/2 tablespoons fresh thyme, minced

salt and pepper

spray oil

First, warm up the oven to 350 degrees and then grab and grease a medium sized casserole dish with some oil.

Grab your potatoes, scrub the skin, then slice them up into thin slices. Think potato chip size. This will take a minute but it’s easier if your knife isn’t dull as shit. Throw all the potato slices in a bowl of water so that they’re covered, that way they won’t get all fucked up looking while you prep everything else.

In a blender, add the almond milk, beans, 1 tablespoon of oil, soy sauce, and half the garlic. Run that   until it looks all smooth and then set it aside.

Now on to the chard. Chop up the rough looking stems so that they are in pieces about the size of the chopped onion. Set those aside and then cut the leaves down the middle of spine. Chop up the leaves so that the pieces are about the width of your finger and no longer than 2 inches. Warm up the remaining tablespoon of olive oil in a medium soup pot over medium heat. Add the onion and the chard stems and sauté until the onion starts looking kinda clear. If you grabbed red chard, those stems will start dying everything in the pot sort of red but don’t worry about that. Add the chard leaves, the remaining garlic, a pinch of salt, and the lemon juice. Sauté until the leaves start to wilt down and cook a bit, about 5 minutes, then turn off the heat.

 Drain the potatoes and stack a layer of the slices along the bottom of the casserole dish so that they overlap a little. Sprinkle about a ¼ of the thyme over the potatoes and then scoop some of the chard and onion mix over top so that it’s spread out over the potato layer. Now pour about a fourth of the milk mixture over top and then start over. Yeah that’s right, just like  lasagna but with all veggies. Stack it potatoes, thyme, chard, and sauce until you run out of stuff. You should get 3-4 layers depending on the size and shape of your dish. No matter what, the top layer should be a final layer of potatoes, with what’s left of the milk poured over, and some of the thyme and pepper sprinkled on.  

Spray the top of this  with some oil, cover it with foil, and bake in the oven for 30-45 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender. Your place will start smelling good enough to be the envy of your entire complex right about now. When the potatoes are tender, take off the foil, crank the heat on the oven to 425, and bake it for another 15 minutes until the top starts to brown. Now this  is good to go. Let it cool for at least 10 minutes before serving then go silence the holiday shit talkers with delicious potatoes. Best the day it’s made. 

*Choose the amount based on how you feel about garlic. We pick 6 because our love runs deep.

**Chard is an awesome choice but not the only one. If you can’t find it at the store, you can grab kale but try and mix it up.