At a conference, but the veggies keep coming...

So last week I was out of town at a conference, which hindered my ability to use up the Week 3 box.  Fortunately since it arrived on Friday and I didn't leave until Tuesday, that gave me 3 days to hit the cooking greens hard.  but that still left me with a whole lotta lettuce when week 4 arrived last Friday:

Week 4

• 1 lb salad mix (lots of frisee it looks like!)
• 1 lb zuchinni
• 1 crown broccoli
• 1 lb collards
• 1 bunch spring onions (very tiny)
• 1 head lettuce
• garlic scapes (6)
• 1 head cabbage
• 1 bunch cilantro.

So, if you've been keeping track, over the last month, we've gotten 4 pounds of salad mix as well as 9 heads of various types of lettuce (green leaf, romaine, etc.).  We've been pretty good at getting though the salad mix thanks to various salads, sandwiches and, my personal favorite, salad pizza, but to be honest, I'd gotten behind on all the heads of lettuce.  So this weekend I decided to take drastic measures and I made, believe it or not, lettuce soup.  Apparently one of the number one recipies that pops up when you search "How do I use up all the lettuce in my CSA" is this one for Lettuce Soup from Gourmet magazine (RIP!). 

I did take a couple of pics of the prep:
Seemingly all the lettuce in the world (but still not all of it!)

Recipe called for a cup of chopped onion, so I used the green onions in the box this week as well as a yellow onion:

Sauteeing the chopped onions:

The final verdict?  Well, as far as pics, I'll let you go back and look at the one on the website, because it's much prettier.  Mine kind of looked like pureed swamp.  Did not taste bad, a little bitterness from the lettuce (in a good way).  Needed a little extra salt and pepper.  I used 2 tbs of butter (rather than 3) and used an immersion blender to puree the soup.  I took it in for lunch and added some chopped grilled chicken.  I think it would also be good with a squeeze of lemon juice and/or a little sour cream. 

Even after all that, I had a couple of small heads of romaine in the fridge!  I took off a few outer leaves, sliced them in half, brushed the cut halves with olive oil and threw them on a hot gas grill for about a minute.  This is what you get:

Chop it up, add a little olive oil and balsamic, and serve it as a salad (I had some pork tenderloin I had grilled).  I didn't use a recipe, but here's one from the NY Times if you like.