Swiss Chard (or Spinach) Pesto Pasta
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By Jasper Brown

​My mother was quite eccentric and preferred whole wheat pasta to the regular stuff. Back when I was little, dried whole wheat pasta wasn’t available in stores. We didn’t cook a lot, but when we wanted pasta my mother would insist on whole wheat, so my father would make pasta from scratch. She also hated tomato sauce (even though she loves tomatoes), but loved pesto sauce. She insisted pine nuts were worth more than their weight in gold, so she devised her own recipe out of things she loves. She had first made the recipe with spinach, but learned from some medical magazine that iron is absorbed better by our bodies from Swiss chard than spinach. 
​At about 4 or 5, some of my earliest memories are of walking in the house to the smells of earthy Swiss chard and mouth-watering garlic. Classical music softly flowed out of the golden-bronze record player, as my parents were never much into the new age stuff. My mother simply didn’t have the time or energy to search out new music, whereas my father just listened to whatever my mother liked. 

Yummy spinach pesto I made, and devoured, for this assignment.

Topping-less spinach pesto

My father would be in the kitchen, cooking away and humming along to the music with my mother sitting at the kitchen table working on her math equations. She was a mathematician at York University, a fitting job for her calculating, logical personality. My father was also a mathematician and York University, but unlike his wife, had a more empathetic and emotional personality. He was the one I went to with all the touchy-feely stuff. So, he’d be in the kitchen, pasta maker set up with flour dusted over the counter. 
“Feel like lending a hand?” He’d ask. He always had a way of making me feel smart, never talking down to me like most adults do to kids. He made me feel like I could help him, instead of being a nuisance he’d have to look after. I’d help him with the pasta, and even if it came out looking like a pasta-coloured turd he’d still tell me I did a great job. Once the pasta was all put together, my parents, my sister, my brother, and I sat around the table, and I’m not sure if tastes are inherited, but that was the best damn pasta to ever grace my tastebuds.  
Nowadays, the recipe has changed a bit, we buy pasta at the store, and we use fresh spinach instead of cooked Swiss chard, but the flavor and memories remain unchanged.
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Ingredients:
- Enough Swiss chard OR spinach to fill the food processor a third of the way full when blended
- Two to four cloves of raw garlic depending on your tastes
- One cup raw parsley, you can use just the leaves if you don’t want the parsley to be too strong
- One can of olives 
- Enough cottage cheese to fill the food processor a third of the way full 
- Parmesan cheese to taste
- ​Black pepper to taste

Utensils:- Food processor
- Big pot (if using Swiss chard)
- Knife and cutting board
- Pot to boil pasta

Only needs toppings

Swiss Chard leaves, Image by Katie Webster

Instructions: 
1. If using Swiss chard, chop into medium-sized pieces and sauté in a large pot until the Swiss chard is cooked down to what un-appetizingly looks like slop. If using spinach, you can simply put it in the food processor fresh. 

2. Put your Swiss chard or spinach into the food processor and blend to form a paste. 

3. Add the olives to taste, and some of the olive juice to loosen the consistency. Add your garlic gloves and your parsley and blend to a fairly smooth paste. 
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4. Add enough cottage cheese to give this colour:

5. Then add your parmesan cheese and black peppers to taste. 
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​6. Add to the cooked pasta of your choice, top with more parmesan and olives(optional), and enjoy with friends and family. 

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