swiss chard question (help)

[matt]

Looking at the cover of April CL. I am planning to make this for dinner tomarrow night and was wondering do I cut up the whole swiss chard, the white parts as well. Just wanted to make sure i do it right. Thanks Matt
any other tips would be great.

[DmOrtega]

Without looking at the April issue, I would remove the middle for any recipe that did not specify using the whole thing. It will behave more like spinich without the middle part.

[chefbec]

Do yourself a real favor and use prewashed spinach!! If you've already purchased the Swiss chard, just use the green part (be prepared to spend lots of time at the sink). The lasagna is really delicious, but you could easily substitute spinach and not notice a difference.

[gertdog]

Matt,

If you do use the chard, a nice way to get the leafy part off the center rib is to fold the two sides of the leaf together, grasp the rib in one hand and the leaf firmly in the other, and tear the leaf up and away from the rib (i.e. tear from the thick bottom of the rib toward the thinner top end). This may have been self-evident to other chard-users, but it wasn't to me until I saw the technique in a cookbook!

Good luck... I've made this lasagna and it really was tasty.