If you do belong to a CSA, you know that the early weeks are filled with lettuces and other salad greens. They are delicious. I am a happy salad guy. I love dumping leftovers and other ingredients over a pile of greens and making a meal out of it.
But, the fact of the matter is that unlike most of the other offerings during the year, they don’t keep well. I have tried pickling them, but the results are disappointing. You can use them in soup, but later, heartier greens work much better. They also hold up better in storage.
So, let me share with you the concept of Lettuce “Pesto”. The recipe I am sharing isn’t mine. It came from a Google search. But the idea of seeing if anyone else had come up with an idea like this was mine. Let me explain.
For the last few months I have been making flatbread on Wednesdays at Premier Gourmet. It’s a basic focaccia base topped with whatever comes to mind. It’s a collaborative effort each week, especially with input from our Chessemistress Amanda. Sometimes it’s based on a Holiday. On occasion we try to imitate a famous sandwich, like a Reuben. One week we thought about a BLT'.
The problem of course is the “L”. How do you make lettuce work on a flatbread. So I Googled “Lettuce Pesto” and found this recipe intriguing. I left out the sun-dried tomatoes as I was roasting grape tomatoes as a topping, along with crisp bacon.
The result was fantastic.
On it’s own, the pesto was lacking, perhaps the sun-dried tomatoes would have made a difference. But I can think of a lot of ways to jazz it up.
Can you?
