Friday nights, I allow myself to indulge from my home cooking by eating out. Astoria has been growing its restaurant listings so I tend to stick around home base where I found this amazing Italian restaurant called Vesta.
Some people may consider the walk to 21st Street from the train a bit of ways but I’ve gotten used to the walk. Vesta is all about green and organic farm grown food. Many of their dishes serve about the same type of vegetables I also had at home. I opted for a half roasted chicken on farro and the best baby carrots ever. With leftovers, I decided that Saturday salad should have some of this amazing chicken.
Ingredient
- 4 large swiss chard leaves
- 1 roasted chicken legs
- 1/2 cup of quinoa, cooked
- 6 grape tomatoes, chopped
- 1/4 cup of baby carrot, chopped
- 1/4 cup of beans
- 1 radish, thinly sliced
- 1 sprig, cilantro, chopped
- 1 tsp olive oil
- salt, for taste
1. Boil beans and carrot until soften.
2. Make strips of the roasted chicken.
3. Mix quinoa, beans, carrot, and tomatoes.
4. Serve mixture on a bed of swiss chard. Secure with toothpick.
This is my first time using swiss chard and I don’t think I would ever eat it raw again. It has a very strong leafy taste, almost as bad as kale. I will have to cook, boil, or saute it as much as I can to get rid of that taste so that it doesn’t overpower the meal.