Garlicky Swiss Chard with Mushrooms and Beans

Well, tonight happens to be one of those night's where I throw a bunch of stuff into a pan, cook it and hope for the best.  I decided on using the chard because it's big, beautiful and taking up a lot of space in my fridge.

I started by adding 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped, coarsely chopped Texas Sweet onion, chard stems, asparagus (this I had left over from a previous week), olive oil, salt and pepper to a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Once the veggies began to soften I added the rough chopped chard leaves and cooked until they began to wilt.  At this point I added some chicken stock and red pepper flake and brought it to a boil.  The heat was lowered to medium-low and simmered for about 15 minutes.  Then I added about half a can of rinsed and drained white kidney beans (because my only other option was garbanzo beans - yuck!) and continued to simmer for about 5 minutes more, just until the beans were warmed through.

While the chard mixture was simmering, I thinly sliced some crimini mushrooms and added them to a saute pan with melted butter and sauteed just until browned.

To assemble this dish I placed a spoonful of the chard mixture into the bowl, added a layer of the mushrooms and topped with a dollop of sour cream and some chopped avocado.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible meal. It had a lot of great flavor and the creaminess of the sour cream and avocado was a good idea. I think that if I were to make this dish again I would use half as much chicken broth as I did because I was hoping that the liquid would cook off but at the risk of overcooking my chard I couldn't wait that long. I also think that I would use plain white beans instead of the kidney beans, they seemed to over power the chard just a bit and the white beans would have added a milder flavor.