Lettuce Soup

I have no idea where I found this recipe, but it came with this note: “Equally delicious warm or chilled, a simple pureed soup of lettuce, potato, onion, and chicken stock is seasoned with hints of parsley, nutmeg and lemon and fortified with a touch of cream. Unlike lettuce in the raw, the soup only gets better as it sits and can be gently reheated throughout the week.”

Storing lettuce: rinse the leaves and spin them dry in a salad spinner. If you have space, storing the leaves in the salad spinner is great. But that takes up a lot of room in the refrigerator. You can wrap the washed leaves in a dry tea towel and then drop that into a plastic bag that you don’t seal tight. I find that if I clean the lettuce when I get it home, I’m a lot more likely to add it to a sandwich or make it into a salad then if I have to do all that prep when I’m ready to eat.

CSA Salad with Buttermilk-Green Onion Dressing

The gorgeous head of lettuce in my CSA box made me run for the salad bowl. Slice up the radishes you don’t put into a sandwich, add the cucumbers and then make this simple dressing. You could sliver some of the Napa cabbage into your salad as well. And what about boiling up a few of those eggs and adding egg halves? Now you’ve got a perfect lunch or light dinner.

Cold Noodles with Fresh and Preserved Greens

Preserved mustard greens can be found canned at most Chinese markets but I’ve included a recipe for preserved greens that you could make with your collard greens. Yes, you’ll have to plan ahead of this dish, but you’ll have an interesting way to use up some of your collards.

Try your romaine lettuce in this dish, or the tender radish and beet greens. Or the cabbage! Or use the kale and cook the greens a little longer than called for here.

Adapted from recipes on seriouseats.com and Saveur magazine.

Grated Raw Beet Salad

This recipe is adapted from one by Martha Rose Shulman and published in the New York Times.

I’m always surprised by the number of people who think you can’t eat beets raw. Of course you can!

And if you scrub them well, you don’t even need to peel them. Just trim up the stem and root ends and that’s all the prep they need. Especially if you’re going to grate them.

Spiced Lettuce Cake Bars

Finally, I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to try this recipe for lettuce cake, and today’s bounty of lettuce provides the means. I saw this mentioned at SeriousEats.com last year, and although it calls for iceberg, I’m going to try it with our green leaf lettuce. Sounds like an interesting variation on carrot cake. The recipe comes Nicole Weston of BakingBites.com.