Last weekend we pulled the chard up from its bed and with that there will be no more chard in the Dempsey household until August at the earliest. But over the last two months or so, those plants have been keeping us more than supplied with greens. So how to use it up. Mostly, I just stir fry it with garlic and a bit of olive oil but there was a week when faced with nearly a kilo of chard, I had to be a bit more inventive and these happened.This is based on a recipe from River Cottage Veg Every Day, which is one of my favourite cook books for inspiration. The original recipe is spinach and ricotta, but says that you can use goats cheese instead. I find for putting greens in things, chard is better as it doesn’t need to have the water squeezed out of it when it’s cooked. The pastry for this is inspired, it’s stretchy to work with but once baked lovely and tender.

WHAT

For the pastry

• 250g plain flour
• 125g chilled butter cut into cubes
• 75ml milk
• Pinch of salt

For the filling

• Olive oil
• 350g chopped chard
• 3 small red onions, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• Zest of one lemon
• nutmeg
• salt and pepper
• 125g soft goats cheese
• 1 egg, beaten

HOW

1. Make the pastry. Put flour and butter in the food processor and blend until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add milk and blend again until it all comes together.
2. Take it out of the processor and form into a disc. Wrap in clingfilm and let it rest in the fridge.
3. Turn the oven on to ….
4. In a large pan over a medium heat, heat about a tablespoon of oil and cook the chard.
5. After about 10-15 minutes, it should have cooked through and reduced in size. Remove from pan and into largish bowl
6. Add another tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and add the onion and garlic. Fry until the onion is cooked through and translucent but not brown.  Add to the bowl with the chard.
7. Add the goats cheese, lemon zest, a grating of nutmeg and salt and pepper to the bowl and set aside.
8. Take the pastry and roll out to about 3mm, divide into six squares of roughly 13cm square.
9. Add half of your beaten egg to the bowl of chard etc and mix it all together.
10. Divide the mixture between the six pastry squares and fold over to make pasties. (I can’t do this tidily but my guess is that the pastry is stretchy for this reason!). Put on a baking tray
11. Brush the pasties with the beaten egg and make a hole in the top for the steam.
12. Place in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until pasties are browned.