Cheesy Mashed Potatoes and Swiss Chard

The house is quiet again. Matt and Danielle took the kids back to Springfield on Saturday. The leftover turkey is in the fridge in a Ziploc bag, and Mom has already portioned it into categories: sliced for sandwiches, shredded for soup, carcass for stock. Patty Kowalczyk does not waste a turkey. Patty Kowalczyk barely wastes a feeling. I aspire to her efficiency. I am currently wasting both turkey and feelings at an impressive rate.

I made turkey soup on Monday. Not because I'm inspired. Because there was a turkey carcass and an onion and a bag of carrots and that's how my mother raised me — you see bones, you make stock. I simmered the carcass for three hours with onion, celery, peppercorns, and a bay leaf. Strained it. Added diced carrots and celery and the shredded leftover meat and a cup of rice because we didn't have noodles and rice is twenty-nine cents a pound at Aldi. The soup was good. Better than good — it was the kind of soup that uses everything and wastes nothing, which is the only cooking philosophy I've ever believed in. Babcia Rose would approve of the anti-waste. She would disapprove of the rice. In Babcia Rose's world, soup gets noodles or potatoes. Rice is for other people.

Dr. Perkins and I talked about January for real this week. Not abstractly. Specifically. She asked if I'd contacted my advisor at NIU. I haven't. She asked if I'd looked at the spring schedule. I haven't. She said, "What's stopping you?" and I said, "I'm afraid I'll go back and sit in a lecture hall and hear a phone ring and be right back on that bench." She didn't say that wouldn't happen. She said, "And what would you do if it did?" I didn't have an answer. She said, "That's what we'll work on."

Nar-Anon on Saturday. Rita wasn't there — her daughter-in-law had the baby, a boy, and Rita went to Michigan to help. The group felt different without her. Smaller. A man named Gerald shared for the first time. His wife. Thirty years of marriage and she's in a facility in Joliet and he visits on Sundays and brings her crossword puzzles she can't finish anymore. He said, "I don't know who I'm visiting. But I keep going." I thought: yes. You keep going. That's the whole thing. You make soup from the bones of what's left and you keep going.

I emailed my advisor. Tuesday night, eleven PM, sitting at the kitchen table where I've eaten ten thousand meals. Three sentences: I want to come back in January. I'm ready. Please let me know what I need to do. I hit send and closed the laptop and ate a bowl of turkey soup and went to bed. Small steps. Soup from bones. Same thing.

Babcia Rose had opinions about potatoes — strong ones — and somewhere between hitting send on that email to my advisor and finishing the last bowl of turkey soup, I found myself thinking about her. The soup got the rice because we had rice; the next night, I made these, because we had potatoes and a bunch of Swiss chard that had been sitting in the crisper long enough to start feeling like a moral obligation. Cheesy mashed potatoes folded with wilted greens: nothing fancy, nothing wasted, exactly the kind of cooking that makes a quiet house feel a little less empty.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 lbs Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 large bunch Swiss chard (about 8 oz), stems trimmed, leaves roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup whole milk or half-and-half, warmed
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Pinch of nutmeg (optional)

Instructions

Boil the potatoes. Place cubed potatoes in a large pot, cover with cold salted water by at least 1 inch, and bring to a boil. Cook until completely tender when pierced with a fork, 15–18 minutes. Drain well and return to the warm pot for 1 minute to steam off excess moisture.
Wilt the chard. While the potatoes cook, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds until fragrant. Add chard leaves in batches, tossing to coat, and cook until fully wilted and any liquid has evaporated, about 4–5 minutes. Season lightly with salt and set aside.
Mash the potatoes. Add butter to the drained potatoes and mash until smooth. Stir in the warmed milk and sour cream, continuing to mash until creamy. Fold in 3/4 cup of the cheddar. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg if using.
Combine. Fold the wilted chard into the mashed potatoes, distributing the greens evenly throughout. Taste and adjust seasoning.
Finish and serve. Transfer to a serving dish or leave in the pot. Top with remaining 1/4 cup cheddar. Serve immediately, or cover and keep warm over very low heat for up to 20 minutes.

Nutrition (per serving)

Cheesy Mashed Potatoes and Swiss Chard — Babcia Rose Would Approve