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Like Salad, Only Better

By the time you read this, my CSA (community-supported agriculture) will be well underway.

Sweet corn will be a few weeks away (usually the Connecticut’s first sweet corn comes from the Windsor area), and tomatoes may not available for another month or more.

I’m also frequenting farm stands. Last week I bought two quarts of strawberries from Scott’s Yankee Farmer in East Lyme and asked when the corn would be available. They said it might be here in about two weeks.

In the meantime, there will be lots of greens, from bok choy to all kinds of lettuce. From one of the first cookbooks I ever bought, The New York Times Cookbook by Craig Claiborne, the second or third recipe I made was for Wilted Spinach.

Today I scoured my bookshelves looking for that cookbook and could not find it, so I just ordered another copy. But I did find in my computer files a recipe that uses up lots of lettuce, this one called BLT soup.

By the way, save the bacon fat from the BLT recipe; you will need it for that wilted salad, too.

I love this recipe and I think you will, too.

Lee White of Old Lyme has been a food editor and restaurant reviewer for more than 25 years. You can email her at leeawhite@aol.com.

Butter Lettuce Soup with Bacon and Tomato

Adapted from The BLT Cookbook

by Michele Anna Jordan (William Morrow, New York, 2003)

Yield: serves 4

Ingredients:

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 small yellow onion, diced (Vidalias work well)

2 large heads of butter (or Bibb or Boston), cored, washed,

and dried

Salt to taste and freshly grated black pepper

3 tablespoons minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

4 cups low-sodium chicken stock or vegetable stock

4 slices bacon, minced

1 cup (or more) very good canned diced tomatoes

(as always, I use Muir Glen)

2 tablespoons snipped chives

½ cup or more little cherry tomatoes, halved

4 tablespoons crème fraiche or sour cream

Directions

Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a medium-large soup pot set over medium-low heat; add onions and sauté until soft, about 10 to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cut lettuce into one-half inch-wide slices. Stir into the cooked onion and season with salt and pepper; add parsley and pour in the broth. Increase heat to medium-high, bring broth to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 7 minutes.

Cook bacon until crisp and drain on paper towel. Using an immersion blender or in batches on a blender, purée the soup. To serve hot, ladle the soup in bowls and drizzle with diced tomatoes, crisp bacon, chives, the cherry tomatoes, and crème fraiche.