Rainbow chard with garlic and hazelnuts

I love plain (green) Swiss chard because of its sweet, “earthy” taste. When chard is in season I prefer it to spinach because it doesn’t mess up your taste buds when you drink wine with it like spinach does, and also because it has a lot more “body” and an almost meaty flavour which I adore.
Rainbow chard is even better looking on your plate than plain one and tastes just as good.
I’ve recently bought some at my wholesaler’s and prepared it for lunch while I was making vlog videos with my friend Jacqueline van Lieshout, the Detox Coach (check her website and Facebook account to see how many fun videos she creates to motivate and help everyone who wants to detox).
You can see the result of our cooking session in this video in which I prepare rainbow chard the Florentine way: simply sautéed in good olive oil with garlic and topped with toasted hazelnuts. We ate it as a side dish with roasted cauliflower with garlic and rosemary for a simple, yet delicious vegan lunch.

The recipe:

several bunches of rainbow chard
4-5 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
good extra virgin olive oil
salt and pepper
1 handful of hazelnuts
if you like, a few tablespoons of Parmesan cheese, grated

Gently fry the garlic cloves in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil until they’re golden brown.
Cut the chard into chunks and fry in the oil until tender but not mushy.
Season with salt and pepper and remove the garlic cloves.

Chop the hazelnuts coarsely and briefly roast them in a dry skillet.
Let them cool off and use them to garnish the chard.
You can also enrich the dish with a few tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese, just like they do in Florence.