I love discovering new recipes, especially the ones that use excess food that is about to go bad. In our case, we had about two heads of lettuce from our fresh produce delivered, starting to wilt in the fridge.
We looked for options on what to do with that much lettuce, and crazily enough, found a recipe for lettuce soup. I didn’t know what to expect but it was surprisingly delicious — a ton of flavor and a great texture. One of my favorite dishes of the year so far.
Mike and I modified the recipe by replacing the chicken stock and heavy cream with vegetable bouillon and soy creamer. We used scallions instead of chives. And didn’t add the salt or oil that the original recipe calls for.
Here’s how we did it.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup sliced onion
- 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley, plus more for garnishing
- 1 tablespoon chopped scallions, plus more for garnishing
- 2 teaspoons chopped tarragon leaves
- 2 heads romaine lettuce, leaves torn
- 1 vegetable bouillon and 3 cups of water
- 1/2 cup soy creamer
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
Instructions:
Heat 3-4 tablespoons of water in a 4-quart saucepan. Add the onions and garlic and cook until the onion is translucent, about 4-5 minutes. Add the parsley, scallions, tarragon and lettuce and stir until the lettuce is completely wilted, about 3-5 minutes. Add the vegetable stock* and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes.
(*Dissolve the vegetable bullion into 3 cups of water while the onions are cooking.)
After 20 minutes, blend the whole mixture. We did it right in the saucepan using a stick blender — put the saucepan on a trivet on the counter and process the soup. Other options are using a blender or a large food processor, then return the soup to the saucepan to heat some more. Be careful during this process, the soup and pan will be hot. Stir in the soy creamer and pepper; simmer for another 5 minutes or so until heated. Garnished the soup with scallions and parsley. Yummy -licious!
Pinkie Kanode
May 24, 2013
Generally grown as a hardy annual, lettuce is easily cultivated, although it requires relatively low temperatures to prevent it from flowering quickly. It can be plagued with numerous nutrient deficiencies, as well as insect and mammal pests and fungal and bacterial diseases. L. sativa crosses easily within the species and with some other species within the Lactuca genus; although this trait can be a problem to home gardeners who attempt to save seeds, biologists have used it to broaden the gene pool of cultivated lettuce varieties. :..;.
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